Fly With Blake | Fly With Blake |
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IMG_0012Date: 04/08/2007
At: Sep 09 2010 13:00Z
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Recently in Site News CategoryFriday, October 2, 2009 - 17:00:23 ET
So, I will be heading off on a month long vacation to the pacific next week. Specifically, Australia, New Zealand, and Samoa. Well, the Samoan visit is still up in the air as they suffered a large earthquake and tsunami this week. I had booked a flight on a Polynesian Airlines between the islands of Savai'i and Upolu. The flight is only 20 minutes long, but would have been a great way to see the islands from the air. To top it all off, it only cost me $15CAD and would be on a Twin Otter!  Hopefully the country will be back into a normal state by the time I'm planning on being there, in November. I'm flying to Australia via Air Canada, a non-stop flight on their 777-LR aircraft. Although their site still shows AC33 as going to SYD via YVR, my ticket shows "non-stop" straight to SYD. So we'll see. Once I'm in the Pacific, I plan on getting around using Virgin Pacific. Flight from Sydney to Auckland, NZ, then on to Samoa. Return flight from Samoa is direct to Sydney. I'm going to have some posts queued up to automatically publish while I'm gone. This means that the e-mail updates will not automatically be sent out. So for those of you on the e-mail list, you will need to check the site manually every few days for new posts. Also, for those of you who are on twitter, I gave in and signed up for an account. Feel free to follow me. Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 11:13:03 ET
I did some cleaning up on the website today. Fixed some broken links, etc... I also did some cleaning up at home and still have a crap load of old CFSs. If anyone wants a few (for training, starting a camp fire, toilet paper) please let me know! Make sure you leave an email address so that I can get your address to ship them to. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 13:46:47 ET
I'm still alive and well. I've been busy with some life events lately that have taken priority over flying and posting to this blog. I normally try to keep my personal life out of this blog, but I have made an exception here. Things have changed quite a bit over the past three years since I started flying. I got engaged, bought a house, became a little older and wiser, the economy took a turn for the worst, I broke up with my fiance, and my house is now for sale. The original plan was to make flying a career. Go back to school, get what I needed to get, take the pay cut, and fly for a living. My timing was almost perfect. There was a boom in the aviation industry as pilots were retiring. I took the idea that I had 5 different instructors while getting my PPL a positive sign that quick motion up through the ranks was possible. Depending on how you look at it. I either started a year too late or didn't have enough money up front to be more aggressive with my training. Where once I had a dual income and support to help me make this transition, I now do not. So. What have I decided to do? I have accomplished a lot. Not only can I fly airplanes, but I can fly multi-engine airplanes at night! ;) I'm just shy of the 200 hours total time mark. I've already started my CPL training and it would be a shame to stop now. So. Whats the plan now? First thing first is to get my books in order, which involves selling my house. Once that is done, then I can better budget my flying and start getting back into the skies. Who knows how long that will take with the current market conditions. I'm going to finish up my CPL training. It would be a shame to put all that effort to waste. I believe that it will give me the most flexibility when it comes to flying. I would hate to turn down a part-time/weekend job because I didn't have a CPL. All the while, I plan on saving up for my own aircraft. I'm not sure what kind of airplane I would like to own. I know it wont be an easy decision and I will be sure to solicit some of the current owners that read my blog for advice in the future. I'm going to Australia in October. I'm not sure if I'm going to try to convert my Canadian License to an Australian one or just to get some dual time down there instead. (Side note: I'm flying there on a direct flight via Air Canada on their 777-200LR). Comments (4) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 10:35:32 ET
The blogosphere has been pretty quiet as of late. I'm planning a post on cold weather and how it affects the altimeter. I noticed yesterday that my site search is broken (most likely from the movable type upgrade I did). I couldn't get it fixed yesterday, so its still broken. It returns all pages regardless if your search term appears in it or not. I'll let you know when it's fixed. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 14:13:22 ET
I've upgraded the site backend from MT 3.1 to MT 4.12. I'm pretty sure I've caught everything. However, if you notice any broken links or images, please let me know. The commenting system has changed a bit. It now uses reCaptcha. You will have to type in two words instead of just one. As well, you can save your details so you don't have to type in you name/email every time. A holiday blog post will be forthcoming including my new years Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Saturday, March 8, 2008 - 18:08:58 ET
I'm Back in town from Boston, my flight was canceled so we ended up driving home in a rented car. There are some changes with ATC phraseology coming in April. All this and more, in a post tomorrow, stay tuned... Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Monday, March 3, 2008 - 14:38:13 ET
I will be out of town (in Boston) for the next week. I wasn't able to fly this past weekend due to poor weather. In the meantime, check out this post at Sullako's Blog of a crazy crosswind landing attempt. Ouch! Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Friday, February 1, 2008 - 11:46:57 ET
Hello and welcome to my blog. You are probably here because of my latest post about my syndication ending at aviation.ca. I encourage you to check out the rest of the site to see what you've been missing. Use the links at the top of the page. Feel free to bookmark this page, and use the following RSS feed: http://fly.blakecrosby.com/index.xml (For those of you who don't know.. I also syndicate my blog over at aviation.ca). Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - 14:45:27 ET
It was only recently brought to my attention that the site was not available to IE users. This was due to a Microsoft bug. The workaround is in place and you should now be able view the site in IE. Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 12:43:00 ET
I learned a few weeks ago that pilots are eligible to registrar .aero domain names. The original intention of this new top level domain was to give the aerospace industry a better "presence" on the web. The entity responsible for this TLD is called SITA. Which may sound familiar as they create the communications systems for air traffic control, airlines, etc... Getting your .aero domain involves a verification step to prove that you are a pilot. I did this by e-mailing SITA a copy of my pilot license. You can also fax or snail mail a copy as well. Once verified, you are given a username and password to use when registering your domain name with a registrar. There is a two year minimum commitment when you first register the domain name. The cheapest I found was $60USD/yr (which by .com or .net standards is almost 10 times the price) at NamesBeyond.com. This is a good idea if you don't mind paying the price for a domain that might not be available in the other TLD name space. So why did I do it? Because I can. Right now www.blakecrosby.aero redirects to this site. Not sure what I'm going to do with the domain, if anything. Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - 11:03:20 ET
I get a lot of comment spam. 99.9% of it is blocked because I don't allow URLs in my comments. Unfortunately this causes a few legitimate comments to end up being deleted because they contain urls. From now on, you will have to prove you are human by entering in a code before hitting the submit button. You will only see if if you have javascript enabled. If for whatever reason you cannot post a comment, please let me know so I can fix the problem. Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Monday, January 29, 2007 - 21:49:10 ET
I've added a new category to the website called "Australia". I'm planning a trip back to the land down under and I am looking into getting a PPL license down there so that I can fly. I think it would be awesome to be able to rent a plane in Sydney, or Perth, and see the land from the air. Right now the trip is tentatively scheduled for sometime in 2008. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Thursday, September 21, 2006 - 15:58:06 ET
A buddy of mine told me today that a squatter had registered flywithblake.com. I'm not sure if I should feel honoured (that my site is large enough for a squatter to care) or angry. Don't worry, I wont be buying flywithblake.com for any amount of money! Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Sunday, April 9, 2006 - 12:14:47 ET
I've removed the Google Ads. They've only earned me $4.35USD since the site launched last December. In it's place i've put a list of the days i'm scheduled to fly. I wrote a script that will automatically download the data from the site that Toronto Airways uses to schedule its planes and instructors. The list is long, since I have many future bookings. I might shrink it down later. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Tuesday, December 27, 2005 - 12:24:14 ET
I have added two new features to the website. 1. Weather. The latest weather forecast for Buttonville is now displayed on the left hand side of the site. The data is decoded from the latest METAR for CYKZ using PHP Weather. 2. Detailed Cost Breakdown. I added a new page that gives you the cost breakdown (by category and item) of my training. You can access it by clicking on the "money spent" total at the left. I plan on adding a similar breakdown for hours flown. An online log book feature. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 23:38:00 ET
I've added a few things to the site: By The Numbers: Added number of entries Random Photo: Added a photo (was getting sick of the "test photo") with titles Last Updated: A new section that will display the last updated dates of the Ground School and Links sections Ground School: Added a "quick links" nav bar at the top to quickly filter ground school entries by category RSS Feeds: You can now add this site to your RSS reader Some items i'm working on include a "more details" page for the "by the numbers" section. You will be able to see a breakdown of type of flying done and where my money went. This site looks perfectly in Firefox and Safari. IE displays it ok, but not how I intended it (the left and right hand navs are more "spaced out" in IE). IE sucks, so you shouldn't be using it anyways. If you have any suggestions on how the site can be better, please dont hesitate to let me know! Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Thursday, October 20, 2005 - 23:47:08 ET
Welcome everyone. This website is now officially live! :) I just sent out an email to all my friends letting them know. Feel free to read any of the previous posts! There are still a few bugs with the site that I will be working on in the next few days. I encourage everyone to sign up for site updates (on the left hand side of the page). Don't worry, I promise you wont get any spam! :) Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Site News
Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 00:00:00 ET
The website has been launched with some things not working properly yet. The reason for this is so that I can start recording items even before the site is finished. Also please be patient if some of the site formatting is broken or not readable. Any feedback is also welcome (via email) is also welcome! I encourage everyone to sign up for the site update emails, so that you know exactly when the website has been updated! Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News
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Vacation Time! (Sorta) 