The Student Pilot Cast (mp3)

Hello, everyone.  I’ve just returned from my little vacation Scuba Diving with my buddies in the Channel Islands, and I’m releasing episode 10.  This episode documents a very memorable flight for me; a flight that helped me remember why I’m doing this.  This flight may end up being even more important to me than my first solo.  Listen to this episode to understand why. Also, The Student Pilot Cast got mentioned in AOPA’s Flight Training Magazine!  Jill from AOPA contacted me a while back and asked me some questions about my podcast and some of my motivations for creating and producing it.  In the July issue on page 14 they outline some of this in the feature, “Training Notes and News”.  Very humbling to be mentioned in a publication that I’ve been reading for a long time, and which I respect a lot. Also, because of that exposure, I’ve gotten a significant number of new listeners, so I want to welcome these newcomers to my exhibitionism around learning to fly.  More and more I’m doing this for all the world to hear and see…mistakes and all.  In this episode, I document my first ever flight away from the airport by myself where I am PIC from start to finish.

Episode 9 is completely different.  We’ll get back to the regular podcasts momentarily, but for this episode, we have the pleasure of hearing from Pilot PJ, a relatively new pilot who shares his wisdom with us.  PJ and I talk about everything from multiple “discovery flights” to finally taking passengers for rides.  Some of the stuff in between includes landings, instructors, the Internet, and an aviation museum that PJ volunteers for in Texas. Enjoy the episode, and a big “Thank you” goes out to PJ for helping out with this one.  Excuse the audio quality…I’m still learning how to properly record interviews.

Here is Episode 8 of the Student Pilot Cast, “Movin’ on Up”.  Join me as I document a dual flight I had where we worked on partial panel instrument flying, ground reference maneuvers, and crosswind landing.  I’ve got a lot of good stuff coming up, and I’m going to start releasing more episodes to relieve the burden of documenting many flights in one episode…it starts to get daunting when I’ve got 6 or 7 flights backlogged.  In addition, I’m hoping this makes it easier to listen and follow it as well.  It should give me more opportunities to do other topics rather than just doing flights every time.  But because I’m flying on average three times a week, it’s easy to fall behind.  We’ll see how it goes. In any case, enjoy episode 8 of the audio cast.  Let me know what you think by contacting me through the contact link above, leaving a comment on this episode, or emailing me at the email address mentioned in the audio cast.

Another episode.  This week I get to finish up recounting the story of my first solo, and then the very next day, my second solo.  There was a lot of good experience to be had, and I try to sum it up in this episode. Enjoy, and let me know if you have any suggestions for the audio cast.  I’m hoping to get some video up soon, but I’m experimenting with the capture of video.  Well see how it all works out.

In this episode we catch up in my training through my phase 1 phase check, a change of my CFI, and of course, my first solo.  This is a big episode, and includes an event that I will always remember. I’m including a couple of pictures from the big event that I asked my instructor to take. This is just seconds before my first ever touchdown as PIC. This one is on rollout for my full stop/taxi back.  See, I’m alone.

Another episode in the cast is released!  In Episode 5 I start to include much more in cockpit audio, by popular demand.  This makes the cast a bit longer than usual, so I hope you don’t mind.  We cover several lessons, up to but not including my Phase 1 Stage Check. There’s a couple of interesting tidbits, and some good information on some changes in my training…or at least my trainer.  As for the title, you’ll have to listen to find out. I mentioned an accident that happened here locally in this episode, and promised to post a link to the NTSB preliminary report.  The fatal crash referenced is here.  I mentioned a previous accident from which the student pilot and CFI walked away.  That link is here. Thanks for listening.  Please leave feedback or click “contact” in the upper right corner of this page to send me an email.

In episode 4 we talk about the continuation of training after my vacation, some things my wife and I saw in Seattle.  We also cover recording in cockpit, landings, and where I’m at with training.  I’ve got 6.6 hours now. I apologize for the long delay of over two weeks, but I was on vacation, and then work had me slammed.  My wife and I went to Seattle, and I wanted to include a couple of pics from that…some of this is discussed in this episode. First, one of my favorites.  Look at the little guy in front of the brand new 777 before a test flight out of Paine Field.  The scary thing is…compared to what I’m flying, that little plane is big…and in this photo is a good 300 feet or so closer to the camera, so its really even smaller than it looks relative to the jumbo. Here is the same 777 on its takeoff roll, and lifting off.   Here is a giant freighter being loaded…that was quite a site.   And a nice shot of the Seattle skyline from the water.   Thanks for listening.  Please leave feedback or click “contact” in the upper right corner of this page to send me an email.

In episode 3 we talk about my first week of training.  Two flights and some ground work.  I’ve got 2.2 hours, and two more flights this week before I have to go out of town.  I also talk abou a B-17 that came to our local airport. Thanks for listening.  Please leave feedback or click “contact” in the upper right corner of this page to send me an email.

…or, How to Choose a Flight School or CFI Okay, on to the second episode.  Its been over ten days since my last episode because I had a snag starting my training.  Because the school I chose was so busy, I had some scheduling issues, but we’ve worked those out, and I have my first lesson tomorrow.  So before I formally start my training, I wanted to do an episode on how I chose my flight school, and what criteria I used.  This is that episode. I mentioned in episode 002 several of the sources of information that I used to develop my criteria for selecting a school, and some of those are listed here.  First, two podcasts were very influential…and those were the Finer Points, by Jason Miller, and the CFICast, produced by the PilotCast guys (which unfortunately doesn’t seem to work well with at least the latest version of Internet Explorer, but the link directly to the feed is here).  Also, the AOPA forums were helpful as well. Once again, music in this episode is from Uncle Seth. Enjoy…and please leave feedback as comments on this episode, or click “contact” above to send me an email.

Here it is…the first real episode…you know, with planes involved.  Listen to a bit of our first flight, some funny stuff from my friend, Trent, and more. As promised in the audio, here are the links to another show from the student’s perspective, the Student Pilot Flight PodLog by Will Hawkins.  And here is his latest efforts, since becoming a pilot, the Pilot’s Flight PodLog. Again, music in this episode is from Uncle Seth. Enjoy…and please leave feedback as comments on this post, or click “contact” above to send me an email.

This is the first episode in the endeavors of a regular guy getting his private pilot certificate. I’m starting flight training next week, and I’ve decided to chronicle this thing for the enjoyment of anyone who cares…and me.  Take a listen to the introduction, Episode Zero. Music for this episode is provided by Uncle Seth.