The principle of the monthly readers polls is easy: I give my point of view on one question and ask for yours. But this time I’ll do an exception. No panic, there’s a question. But no opinion because I’m really not sure what to think…

What do you think about the RedBull Air Race? Is it a great way to promote aviation and attract new people? Or is it an insane, useless even that is bad for aviation’s image? Let me know…

The idea of this post was born when I saw the next raffle plane of the 1940 Air Terminal in Houston. This is a vintage 1957 Cessna 172. 1957… This aircraft is now 53 years old, and it flies like a new one. It has been well taken care of, and even if its panel is not the most modern around, it has all what is needed to fly safely. The radios have been updated and a GPS has been installed, but the airframe is unchanged. The original engine was probably replaced when it reached its maximum certified time, according to the certification standards.

I don’t know if some Airworthiness Directives required changes that affected the aircraft’s structure, but if not it is simply the same good old Cessna 172 that was built back in 1957. I love the idea that a 53 years old aircraft is still flying. This makes an aircraft a great investment. Unlike a car that has lifetime somewhere between 5 and 10 years, aircraft (or at least airframe) have an unlimited lifetime.

This at least applies to good old aluminum airframes. But what about the new, composite airframes like the ones of all Diamond and Cirrus aircraft. Composites react to long exposure to the sun differently than metal. This is why these aircraft have to be mostly white, to reduce effects of the sun. Composite airframes have been around for fifteen years now and until we’ll have “real life” data, the discussion will probably remain open. If you’re interested in a deeper details check this post on Oshkosh365.org, the discussion board of the EAA. Some of these guys build aircraft themselves, I’m sure they know what this is all about.

And if you want to own a 1957 Cessna 172, you can buy tickets for the 1940 Air Terminal raffle plane for $50. Get a chance, and this is to support a great museum!

When the rules about Light Sport Aircraft (LSA for short) got defined I first thought “uhu, this is not for me”. Only two seats and a maximum speed of 120 kts are two big turnoffs. Both limit the use of LSAs for travel. I like fast, complex aircraft. The first LSAs that came around were also not that exciting. With all due respect, the Cessna Skycatcher is a very conventional aircraft. Except for its avionics, it’s not very appealing to me.

But the more LSAs I see, the more I think that having one could be fun. Not something like a SkyCatcher, but some more innovative LSAs. If you’re not thinking about the Terrafugia Transition or the Icon A5 at this point, you should read more about those. Long story short, the Terrafugia Transition is a “roadable aircraft” with folding wings and the Icon A5 is a very stylish amphibian LSA.

These are much funnier than a classically designed LSA. They are designed and built from new perspectives, without the influences or classicism of what we use to fly nowadays. They don’t have the same goals either, but this is the whole sense of LSA. May be the whole misunderstanding comes from the name itself. Light Sport Aircraft. The FAA should change that to Light Funny Aircraft – because this is what these new manufacturer provide. Aircraft to fly for fun. No long range, fast travel machines, but fun aircraft to fly for the sake of flying.

The last one I stumbled upon is still in the design phase but it looks very attractive. Like the Icon A5 it’s an amphibian. It is called EQP2 Excursion and is developed by Equator Aircraft. I know, most of the pictures available are marketing only. But the Icon A5 started the same way, and it’s now flying and getting ready for certification in 2011.

Sorry, but I have to write it. This new one is just sexy. And this kind of flying machines could really attract a whole bunch of new people to aviation. Now, let’s start a petition to rename the category Light Funny Aircraft. Who wants to sign?

You’re flying a single engine aircraft and your engine fails shortly after take-off. What do you do? You’ll lower the nose to maintain airspeed and land somewhere in front of you, not to far left or right. Because you know that turns will cost you altitude, and you don’t want to make a tight 180 degrees turn towards the runway behind you. There is a reason why this is called the impossible turn, isn’t it? Flying steep turns at low altitude without power is what you learned NOT to do. Because this ends in stall and possibly spin. The type known as graveyard spin.

You know that because your instructor told you. May be you even simulated that. Turning back towards the airport is tempting because this is a place you know, where you can land and get assistance easily. Save the plane. But you first duty as pilot in command is to save the occupants, and turning back to the airport is not the best way to do it.

Why this post? Why now? Because sometimes unusual things happen. Look at this video before you continue reading…

It look like this Mooney pilot did fly the impossible turn. At first, kudos to him to saving the plane and its occupants. Now, a few observations:

• The engine noise is scary and this must be very stressing
• It’s hard to say if some power was still available or not
• The altitude and position of the airport are not easy to guess
• The turns seem really steep to me
• There are lots of openings, and also this other runway available

The camera view being much narrower than the human vision it’s hard to get a good idea of the whole situation. But it pretty much looks like the pilot did fly the impossible turn. There have been lots of discussions because this video has been released by the AOPA Air Safety Foundation and many think it’s not a good example.

Seeing it does not change my ideas about the impossible turn. I think that pilots are smart enough to recognize something out of the ordinary when they see it, and won’t try to make this at home. This pilot certainly quite experienced and knows this plane well. He made something great happen but we must not forget about all those who failed while attempting to do the same thing.

Do you feel like you could do it? Then I suggest that you go out and try with a GPS and possibly an instructor. Why the GPS? Because you’ll need a waypoint to reproduce the exercise shown in this video.

If you can do it, let me know. I’d love to publish your video then. But for now, I still consider the impossible turn as being impossible.

Sometimes having a blog is like building your very own puzzle. This blog is now three years old and its growth was not always controlled. I added bits and pieces, tweaked the design, moved things around. It did reach the point where none of the puzzle’s pieces seemed to assemble properly. It was time for a good overhaul, and I did it… What you see right now is the result of it.

The base remains the same: aviation contents. The logo has been updated and the navigation concept is new. Some pages vanished: those providing you with syndicated contents from other blogs as well as the library and download sections. I’m reducing contents to focus more on the blog and to make it more personal.

But wait, it’s not all. If you know me, you know I’m a fervent advocate of aviation as a community. Pilots are not selfish guys locked-up in their cockpits but parts of a great community. When I started this blog three years ago I did not expected it to bring me in touch with so many aviation enthusiasts. I won’t list all of them here, but just say thank you to you. The Flying Across America project was the top of what the aviation community gave me… so far.

My way of saying thank you is to create a new website to help you building more links in the aviation community. Internet is a wonderful tool for this purpose. All the pages I removed from this blog now live there as well. This new website aiming at creating more connections is simply called ConnectingPilots.com. Check it today and don’t forget to connect! Use twitter, facebook and the newsletter. Its structure is in place and I’ll continue to add content to it over the next days.

Taking these pieces of the puzzle to another place helped to make things clear and I’m sure you will like ConnectingPilots.com. Talking about puzzle pieces, some were missing here. I never integrated a real collection of links. This is now possible via my new Links page. Contact me if you want your aviation site to be listed. Note that I’m also working on a massive links directory on ConnectingPilots.com.

The last missing piece in this puzzle was a newsletter. This gap is now filled and you can “contact my frequency” using the form below. You will receive mails from me every now and then about what is going on in aviation. It is just like hanging out at an airport but online. No spam, and it is free – I really appreciate you to join.

I love to travel. Preferably by the air. Preferably as pilot in command. But I also enjoy traveling as a passenger, because it is still traveling. Traveling from A to B is often more than moving from A to B. It’s often like changing worlds, almost changing life. What I noted during recent trips is that the change does not take place slowly, but often at precise, symbolic points.

When flying across the North Atlantic ocean, it is when crossing the southern tip of Greenland that I say to myself “Ok, I’m changing place now”. Between Europe and South America, the symbolic point is Gibraltar. Leaving Europe behind, or coming back to it.  Crossing the equator is always a symbolic step in each travel. I’d love to cross these three points as pilot, but none of them is easily accessible to private pilots… may be one day.

But there are symbolic points in almost all trips, even shorter ones. I crossed the English Channel a couple of times, and even something like the turn of the Rhône valley near Martigny marks the limit between two different areas. Mountains on one side, and the Geneva Lake area on the other. Flying in the Alps offers lots of such changes. Some alpine passes mark differences between different climates, between different linguistic areas. Fly across them and you land in a completely different place… that’s almost magic.

If you also have such symbolic turning points I’d love to read more about them. Will someone mention the Bermuda’s triangle?

Yesterday I received new wings. Small ones, in the form of a lapel pin from AOPA. This was a “Thank You” from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association for me reaching five years of membership. This celebration left me with a slightly bitter impression…

Why bitter ? Because I started flying in August 2001 and have been an active pilot for nine years. What’s the reason why I was not a member for the first four years? Well… you know… I don’t really have one. When I was flying in Geneva I was member of both the US and Swiss AOPAs. The two are not really of the same size in terms of number of members but they pursue the same goals: represent and defend General Aviation.

When there are discussions involving General Aviation the AOPA is almost always there to represent pilots. The association is well known from the authorities, also in smaller countries. I won’t list here all what AOPA is doing here, this would be too long. But I want to mention two things: the AOPA pilot magazine, published monthly and the ASF. The AOPA pilot magazine can be found on the desk or in the restrooms of all pilots houses. It’s a great reading and this is one of the reasons why I got membership in the US AOPA as well.

The ASF is the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. Safety is a hot topic for all smart pilots and there’s a lot to learn from the ASF. Their website offers a lot of safety resources:

• Accident databases
• Online courses
• Quizzes
• Real pilot stories
• Webminars

Some of these are available to anybody, some others are for members only. One more reason to be a member. Or to become one if you’re not already. Learn from my mistake, not being a member for 4 years was not smart. I preach about aviation being a community and was not part of the largest pilot association myself. Facepalm and Mea Culpa.

It’s not possible to sit in an aircraft for 62h50 in 23 days beside Jason Schappert and not experience some kind of side effects. Just in case you missed that, Jason is the CFII behind www.m0a.com and we did fly across America together in his Cessna 150. We probably became as close as members of a crew can be during this trip, and well beyond cockpit work. I can’t say how many coded words and private jokes we developed or how many times we wanted to strangle each other.

Now that the trip is over I could reveal secrets and embarrassing things about Jason… but I won’t. I respect Jason because he’s both a friend and a great aviation professional. And because he’s a friend, I’m sure that he won’t mind seeing this picture on my blog… This was in a TexMex restaurant in Houston where Jason made the arguable decision to eat a red pepper…

So far I flew with 14 different instructors or examiners in the right-hand seat and a lot of other pilots. I was also in the co-pilot seat a lot of times and know the habits and way of working of different pilots. From this point of view, Jason is one of the best I ever flew with. I saw him in various situations and could appreciate his pedagogic skills. Want more? Ok. His passion for aviation does not stop after landing. This guy is probably the ultimate flying enthusiast. He just never stops. He has all possible ratings, more than 4.000 hours, he runs a great flight instruction website, authored flight training books, talked at Sun’n'Fun and Oshkosh. Shall I continue?

If you read Jason’s blog you already know that he’s launching a online ground school for pilots. But what I know thanks to the month I spent with Jason and that you can’t even imagine is what this online ground school really is, and how dedicated he is. He spent part of his nights finalizing each and every detail, reviewing and editing the hours of video, polishing the website’s design, preparing the launch, making sure that the customer experience will be just perfect. I must admit that the concept is really cool – a video-based online ground school, always up to date, unlike books or DVDs. M0a’s online ground school is more than videos that you can see online or on your iPad, it also includes interactive quizzes, and time online with Jason himself, private forums, training documents…

You think that I got brainwashed, don’t you? I had a preview of this material and I saw how Jason intends to run it and I believe this is the future of flight training. Click here to check Jason Schappert’s online ground school yourself and let me know your opinion.

For the last eight years I carried my Sporty’s SP-200 NAV/COM handheld radio in my flight bag. I used it only to listen to ATIS or get IFR clearances before starting the engine. I never had to use it in an emergency, but knowing that it is behind the co-pilot seat, ready to be used, makes me feel much safer.

I played with the VOR / LOC receiver in flight a couple of times to make sure I remembered how to use it. I can imagine coming back to the airport in the dirtiest electric emergency using this radio only, as long as there’s a VOR or localizer approach. Apart from changing the batteries every now and then, I never had any issue with this radio. A real pilot’s best friend… but… you know… there’s this new guy around now…

Sporty’s new NAV / COM transceiver is known as SP-400 and is an even better version of the SP-200. The screen got bigger, the keys of the keyboard as well but the whole case got a bit smaller. Thanks to the bigger display more information is available in VOR mode and it is also possible to list more stored frequencies. But the real improvement is the ILS mode.

For the first time, a handheld radio includes a complete ILS receiver with localizer and glide slope. If your nastiest emergency is coupled with low ceilings, you now have a chance to bring your aircraft back to the airport by flying an ILS approach. The frequency flip-flop button from the SP-200 is still present, allowing to switch between two frequencies rapidly. This is perfect to switch from and ILS to the tower frequency and back.

From the demo video available from the SP-400 page on sporty’s website it seems that the glide-path indicator moves in steps and not really continuously. This can make flying a smooth approach a bit harder, but hey! We’re talking of saving your life and your aircraft…

At $399, the SP-400 is a great complement to your flight bag if you don’t have a handheld radio yet. Don’t forget to buy a headset adapter. There is no way you can use the speaker in the cockpit if your engine is running.

The whole aviation world (except me) was at EAA AirVenture 2010 in Oshkosh last week. Whether you were there (not like me) or somewhere else (like I was), there’s so much to see that it’s unlikely that you’ve seen all of it. Here’s a not so brief recap of what aviation bloggers reported from Oshkosh 2010.

Paul from askacfi.com published this collection of pictures. AirPigz posted 6 photo streams showing different aspects of the show:

Part 1: It’s all about to begin!
Part 2: Sunshine & AvGeek Hapiness
Part 3: Getting settled in
Part 4: Avgeek nation
Part 5: Sunny Thrusday (and wearing down)
Part 6: Seaplane base serenity

Scott Spangler of JetWhine uses to go to Oshkosh on the setup day, otherwise known as Day 0. Rob Mark also posted a photo album on JetWhine, centered on people he met at Oshkosh.

Max Trescott spend three days at Oshkosh looking for new products. He reported about them in a three part series: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Dan Pimentel, a.k.a. Av8rdan also posted several times about his trip to Oshkosh. Click here to read his report about weather, meeting with the guys of myTransponder, and Jack Roush’s landing accident, amongst others. Dan explores in a second post why Oshkosh is a week-long event. As many, he explains why it’s good to go there for more than 48 hours, and what he missed by being there only for two days. Hum, at least, Dan, you were there. Not like… me. By the way, thank to all of you for sharing.

Video bloggers were in Oshkosh as well (unlike me). My two favorite videos are this demonstration from ForeFlight’s new features. I was lucky enough to get a demonstration in Houston during my flight across America, and I’ve been quite impressed.

Talking about the iPad, look at that. This aircraft is simply exhilarating.

This is not exactly what I had in mind when I wrote this post about Steve Jobs revolutionizing the aviation with the iCockpit, but hey, why not?

Last but not least, if you wonder what PilotLife is  and where Jason got his METAR tee-shirt, click on the picture below: