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Readers poll: hardest part of a checkride

August 1, 2010

When I passed my private pilot checkride the part I was the most afraid of was the steep turns. Even if I know how to fly good steep turns this maneuver makes me nervous and I’ve never been really good at it. I was happy that the examiner wanted to see them quite early in [...]

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The safest way to protect your pitot tube

July 29, 2010

The Pitot tube is used to drive the airflow to the airspeed indicator. If something blocks this small air intake the airspeed indicator stops working. When aircraft are parked their Pitot tubes must be protected to make sure that they stay clean. Dust, dirt, grass, bugs… many things can block a Pitot and possibly damage [...]

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Flying in the Alps eBook now available!

July 26, 2010

Flying in Switzerland and in the Alps is very attractive to a lot of pilots. The Alps offer spectacular scenery at all times of the year and landing at mountain airports like Sion, Saanen or Samedan is a great experience. But flying in the Alps is also demanding and can be intimidating. I learned to [...]

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Will VORs die?

July 22, 2010

Are VORs on the decline? Will they die and vanish? Long story short: yes, VORs will die. I’ve been in aviation for more than ten years now and I’ve heard lots of theories about the end of the VOR system. Because VORs have to be installed at specific location, they are expensive to build and [...]

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Just Because I Can… Posting live from 34.000 feet

July 17, 2010

This post is coming live from American Airlines flight 1597, from Jacksonville to Dallas Fort-Worth. I’m on my way home after the Flying Across America project, and the MD-82 I’m flying in has in-flight WiFi from GoGo Inflight, so this is really live, not just a post I written in an aircraft and published later. [...]

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Do we have a safety culture problem?

July 15, 2010

For last month’s survey I asked you what your biggest fear in aviation is, the event that scared or stressed you the most during your flying activities. In the same post I shared about my scariest event, which involved flying in a cold front. The idea behind this post was to share some experiences and [...]

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Readers Poll – Highest altitude

July 7, 2010

The place where you fly and the kind of flying you do defines your personal altitude record. My personal best is 13.500 feet in a DA40 TDI. In non turbo aircraft it is 12.500 flying in the Alps. For this month poll, let me know what is the maximum altitude you did reach in a [...]

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Expanding my comfort zone

July 2, 2010

I have not fly an aircraft for one year before staring the Flying Across America project, to save money for the project. Long story short, this project consists of flying from Florida to California and back in a Cessna 150 with Jason Schappert, the flight instructor and blogger behind m0a.com to promote General Aviation. The [...]

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Europe vs. USA – How different flying is over there

June 28, 2010

All pilots flying outside the USA have heard stories about how easy and simple it is to fly there. I’m no exception and now that the Flying Across America project is started I got some first hand experience. Trust me, the differences are as big as the stories tell, if not more… Airport operating times [...]

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Do you know plasticpilot.net?

June 24, 2010

While I’m flying across America, I’ll do my best to continue publish posts here and lot leave you alone in the dark. No new contents today. This blog did grow over time and I want to show you less known parts of plasticpilot.net which I’m sure you’ll like. Let’s start this visit outside the blog, [...]

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