I’ll remember 2008 as a very people oriented year. I met three readers of this blog personally. Julien for a pilots discussion around a coffee at Frankfurt airport. Matthew invited me in London to test-fly a Cirrus and join the Cirrus 147 group fly-out to Bembridge and visit the Cirrus assembly workshop. I also drove ten hours over two days to meet Lorenzo and visit the Pilatus factory in Stans. I was also in touch with other extraordinary pilots when preparing the interviews. Joiwind Alexander and Jessica Cox are both really inspiring. I also collabored with two Jasons: from m0a.com for the “Different perspectives” series and from vectorstofinal.com for the “Europe vs. US flying” series (visit the archives to read more…). Many of you also left comments and started discussions which sometimes surprised me.

Shaun Lunt left us and Steve Fossett was “officially” declared dead.

From flying point of view I discovered how flying is like in England and was surprised by the services provided by Farnborough Radar. Click here and here to read more about my 12 hours flying week. Apart from this week, I almost did not fly. This is a consequence of our move to Frankfurt for professional reasons. I hope to resume flying in 2009, but I don’t have any specific plan.

One of the lessons I learnt in 2007 is still valid: aircraft accidents are popular and media reports are unreliable. Both the BA038 accident in London and the Spanair crash in Madrid demonstrated it… again.

2008 was also an important year for this blog. The 500 posts and 100′000 page view marks are both behind now. Slowly turning this blog into a more developped webiste alsp makes me happy. I developed several pages and more in preparation. Check the second column or visit my homebase to find them.

How was your 2008 ? What did you learn ? New ratings ? Let’s celebrate 2008 together before flying in 2009.

PS: Happy New Year 2009 to all of you !