Category Archives: General
Severe windstorm
Update: pix at the Rain Aviation Blog (via Dave Rooney’s comment). My home airport, Ottawa Rockcliffe, was hit by severe winds yesterday: I’ve heard from 18-24 airplanes damaged, at least 10 of which are write-offs. After supper today my spouse … Continue reading
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Flying is like …
Here’s how some recent tweets describe flying: LizaBelle30: Flying is like throwing yourself at the ground and missing elysiancoffee: flying is like preparing oneself for a big performance in which I only become an instrument johnnyo312: flying is so horrible … Continue reading
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What WW II plane would I have wanted to fly?
Yesterday, I asked what WWII plane you would have chosen to fly. I thought my answer was not so obvious — I expected to see a lot of Spitfires, Mustangs, ME-109s, Zeros, B-29s, etc. — but two other people have … Continue reading
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Blog question: what World War II plane would you have wanted to fly?
Here’s a question for the aviation bloggers reading this posting: if this were World War II, and you could have a two-year mission to fly any military aircraft you chose (from any country), what would it be? To make it easier, … Continue reading
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Three things
See comments: Hamish made me strike one. Via Aviatrix, the challenge is to list three things I’ve done that I don’t think any of my readers have done. If anyone has done one (let me know in the comments), then … Continue reading
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Talking to ATC: "you, me, where, what"
Talking to ATC makes some pilots nervous — especially if they trained at an uncontrolled airport — but it’s actually pretty simple as long as you take a second to think before you push the PTT button, and compose your … Continue reading
OurAirports can geocode (!!)
Today I overhauled the search system in OurAirports to use Google’s free geocoding service. Geocoding takes an address like “Algonquin Park” or “1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC” and converts it to a latitude and longitude — it doesn’t sound like … Continue reading
Partial panel
I had my first experience flying partial panel in IMC on Monday, coming home from Boston. It wasn’t the classic partial panel — a vacuum failure — but a failure of the attitude indicator instrument itself, followed by the airspeed … Continue reading
Death and immortality
The Internet Death Clock says that I’ll die on 30 August 2038, 30 years from this summer (it doesn’t take into account the longer average life span in Canada). That’s good news, because now I don’t have to worry about running … Continue reading
N22309: an unlucky number
My U.S.-manufactured 1979 Piper Warrior II was originally registered as N22309, until it was imported into Alberta, Canada in 1988 and reregistered as C-FBJO. It wasn’t the only plane to use that registration number. The first N22309 that I can … Continue reading
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Land and Hold Short 