Looking back at a post from over ten years ago has me reporting that my dream aircraft to buy was the Grumman Cheetah. A great low wing aircraft with a cool sliding canopy that allows you to fly with it open. A lot has changed in ten years, but the goal has remained the same:…
It’s great being back in the pilot’s seat again. I’ve started flying in San Francisco, and boy-oh-boy, it’s nothing like back in Toronto. Today’s flight started around 4pm. The weather was great, not a cloud in the sky (at least east of the Santa Cruz mountains). After a standard pre-flight briefing with the instructor, we…
During a bike tour of Portland, OR I noticed a helicopter landing on top of a nearby building. Our tour guide mentioned that this was Oregon’s only public use heliport. It’s located on top of a parking structure that was built in 1989. There is enough room for four rotorcraft to park. Talk about a…
Last Friday the Police caught someone shining a laser pointer at a police helicopter: On Friday, August 1, 2014, shortly after midnight, Air2 was in the area of Yonge Street and High Tech Road assisting uniform officers on the ground, who were conducting a traffic stop on an impaired driver. While assisting with the traffic…
Oh, I don’t use paper maps anymore. – Coworker. One of the advantages of flying the USA I guess! A co-worker recommended that I fly out of San Carlos airport (KSQL), so I decided to take a look at the surrounding airspace to get familiar with flying in San Francisco. It’s pretty complicated. So much…
I’ve started blogging again! This time from the west coast of San Francisco, California. I’m in the process of converting my TCCA licence to an FAA license (*nudge* see, American spelling now!). I’ll be blogging about that process when I’m done studying all the new material. In the mean time, the website has a brand…
9:44pm, June 22, 1924. Three minutes before dusk and still no sign of Pilot Russell Maughan. 50,000 people waited at Crissy Field outside of San Francisco for the first ever dawn to dusk transcontinental crossing of the United States. What nobody had known was that thunderstorms and heavy rain had caused poor take off conditions…
Stats Canada released their aircraft movement report last week. Some highlights: There were 5.2 Million take-offs and landings at the top 93 airports. The peak month was in July, 2012. Toronto Pearson (CYYZ) was number one at 435,592 movements. Buttonville (CYKZ) pushed up two spots last year from 11th to 9th with 138,946 movements. Of…
It was Sunday afternoon when I decided to see if there was a plane available at 6pm. I called up the airport, and indeed there was! So far, the new booking policy at TAL has paid off. For me specifically, I’ve been able to fly exactly when I wanted to without having to book months…
Yesterday involved a 1.5 hour checkout with a flight instructor at Toronto Airways. It had been 8 months (damn, time flies) since I was last up in the air. Toronto Airways has changed their checkout policy for the better. Checkouts now involve 0.5 hours of ground briefing plus 1 hour in the air. The good…