My name is Vincent, and I’m a swiss private pilot, now living close to Frankfurt (Germany) with my wife and our daughter. My total flight time is over 350 hours, a quarter of it being IFR. I like to fly complex high-performance single engine aircraft, and my most flown type is the PA32 Saratoga. I’m a fan of modern general aviation, including composite airframes, FADEC controlled engines, and glass-cockpits. I’ve flown 25+ hours in DA40 and DA42 equipped with the Garmin G1000 Glass Cockpit, and know first hand about the risks and benefits of such systems, under both IFR and VFR conditions.

Why PlasticPilot ? It all started when I got my transition to the DA40. Touching its composite fuselage gives the feeling that it’s made of plastic. Together with a friend, we nicknamed it PlasticPlane. I logically became the PlasticPilot.

Professionally speaking, I’m a radar tracking specialist, working for air traffic control companies. To make the long story short, I’m taking care of the systems which produce a single radar picture using inputs from multiple radars and other sensors. This gives me good connections to the airline industry, and I like to share my knowledge about it. Particularly, I frequently try to clarify things about which media tend to report slightly incorrectly.

If you want to read more about me, you can read my “19 things about me and this blog” post, which was part of my 2008 Advent’s Calendar.

Apart from the blog, this website contains 3000+ photos, most of them taken in-flight. The video galleries contains a few dozen short movies showing take-offs and landings at various airports, including the famous Samedan and Courchevel. The site also contains serveral pages covering different topics. You can find all of them in the second column, or from my homebase. I also run www.easymetar.com to offer easy and free pilot briefings online.

I used to be a member of the motor flying group of the Aeroclub de Genève, from the motor flying group of the Aeroclub de Lausanne, from the Aeroclub de Suisse, and from AOPA. I’ve also been a temporary member of the West London Aero-Club, based in White Waltham. I got my initial G1000 training and some further flying by Cannes Aviation, in Cannes on the French Mediterranean shore.

Summary of my flying as of 18th of June 2009.

Total time flown – 372:13, of which 224:32 PIC and 147:41 Dual.

SEP vs. MEP - 363:19 SEP and 8:54 MEP

Condition time – 93:52 IFR and 7:35 NIT

Landings – 775 by day and 21 by night

Longest leg – 3h24 Geneva to Biggin Hill in a PA32

Longest flying day – 5h05 on the 19th of August 2008

Types flown - AS202 Bravo, Cessna C172 TDI, DiamondStar DA40-TDI, Bonanza F33A, Liberty XL2, Piper PA28 Warrior, Piper PA28 Archer, Piper PA28 Dakota, Piper PA32 Saratoga, DA42 TwinStar

Next objective: Complete the Flying Across America project

Since March 2009, other contributors joined the crew and also post great aviation contents here:

Matthew, who earlier invited me for a flight in a Cirrus SR22, is the editor of Golf Hotel Whiskey, where he shares golf, hotels, pubs and restaurant tips for pilots, and much more. He is Writer in chief at Articulate Marketing and author of the Bad Language blog. He has a CPL/IR and over 500 hours. He already posted here about the specifics of flying in UK and will contribute with more posts about the Cirrus, amongst others.

Julien, on of the most active commenters, will re-activate the “Best of the web” post series, prepare best-of posts and has some ideas about a newsletter… Julien is a private pilot based at Bankstown airport near Sydney, Australia where he flies with the Schofields Flying Club. He started learning to fly in Cessnas in 2007 at the Redcliffe Aero Club near Brisbane, Australia and received his PPL in 2008. Julien now flies Arrows and Archers and is working towards a Night VFR rating. He keeps a personal blog to record and share his flying experience. When on the ground, Julien can be found either earning money to go flying again through a management job in an IT research center, or enjoying life in beautiful Sydney with his wife and their cat.

Axel is the former editor of www.pilot-net.com. He stopped blogging by lack of time, but missed it. He will contribute here about his training in Florida and hopefully about his career as professional pilot. The posts from his previous blog will be re-published here – don’t miss the part about his (courageous) decision to move from Norway to Florida, nor the ones about his first solo, they are simply exhilarating. Many of his photos will also be transferred in the photo galleries.