The Student Pilot Cast

This is part II of Podapalooza 2009, the part of the show that was not broadcast live on EAA Radio.  This took place at Oshkosh, July 31st, 2009.

If you are thinking about learning to fly, check out Air Freddy’s Learning to Fly Guide, an e-book that will answer many of your questions beforehand, and do it in an entertaining way. 

Enjoy the episode.

Hello, everyone! Here is the first part of the audio from Podapalooza 2009 from Airventure in Oshkosh, July 31st, 2009.  This part contains the audio from the show that was broadcast live on EAA Radio.  After the radio station had to cut away, we continued Podapalooza and I will bring you that audio in the next episode.  By then, I’m hoping to have my Remos flight video completed, and I will release that shortly thereafter.  Here are a couple of photos from this years show.

Getting ready to start	The Pavillion filling up as we get started
Stu talks about his first impressions of Oshkosh	Stephen Force cracks wise, I’m sure
Jack getting a comment from Rod	Threw in a pic of the Terrafugia for good measure :)

Don’t forget, if you are thinking about learning to fly, check out Air Freddy’s Learning to Fly Guide, an e-book that will answer many of your questions beforehand, and do it in an entertaining way.  Freddy has included many stories from his over 9000 hours of dual given time that help you learn what to expect and how to make decisions as you start your training, perfect for the beginning pilot.  Air Freddy sponsors this podcast through these e-book sales, so you’ll be supporting The Student Pilot Cast as well with a purchase, and I appreciate that.

Let me know what you think of Podapalooza 2009!  I hope you enjoy it.  Now, get out there an fly!

We continue my coverage of EAA Airventure with episode 30.  Today I present an interview with David Fetherston of Nexair Avionics about their new airplane, the Saratoga NX.  The NX is a rebuild from spinner to tail of Piper’s Saratoga, but with all new avionics, speed mods, etc.  It’s a very interesting value in a travelling six-seater mini-van.

Along with the interview, I want to share several pictures with you of their first product of this program, a 1982 fixed gear Saratoga.  Enjoy.

I hope you enjoy the interview, and I want to once again thank the folks at Nexair.  I’m impressed with what they’ve done.  I’d love to hear from you on what you think.

Airventure 2009 is over, but I’ve got a bit of good material from Oshkosh that I’ll be publishing.  This is the first of it.  In this episode, I confirm why everyone loves Oshkosh so much with a quick discussion with John and Christine Halbrook around the campsite one evening.

Obviously, this is a small break from the normal episodes of my training, but I think you’ll find these quick podcasts interesting and worthwhile…at least I hope you do.  Please let me know what you think.  As usual, I’d love to hear from you.

I have a few more things to share from Oshkosh, as well as a short video about recording cockpit audio that is ready to go, and will be published in the next couple of days.  After that, we’ll resume normal programming and finish up my training.  Enjoy.

Hello everyone.  I’ve spent my first night in Oshkosh for Airventure 2009.  I arrived yesterday afternoon in Milwaukee, got my rental car, and after grabbing some grub for lunch and some supplies for camping, I drove on up to Oshkosh, and set up my camping area at the MyTransponder basecamp.

Then I found out some good news from Rod at MyTransponder.  I was scheduled to do a media flight in a brand new G1000 Cessna 206 Thursday morning. Stoked. Unfortunately, we woke up this morning to pretty heavy rain, and the media demos were postponed.  Not sure if I’ll still get to fly it, but hoping for a reschedule soon.

The best part, though, is the I got to finally meet up with so many people that I haven’t seen in a while and meet some other friends that I’ve never met face to face.  Steve Tupper, Jason Miller, David Allen, and a couple others did a little jam session, so we got to listen to some music, catch up, and basically have a good time.

Tonight is the MyTransponder party in our campground, and I’m really looking forward to that.  If anyone is here at Oshkosh, follow MyTransponder and/or me on Twitter for more information.  http://twitter.com/MyTransponder and http://twitter.com/billwil. I’ll see you all there!

Okay, I’ll try to keep you posted as we go, here.  In the meantime, enjoy a shot taken by Mike Miley of MyTransponder of work being done on the Ford Tri Motor.

Mike’s Oshkosh Photostream

Hello SPC listeners! Today we will follow my outbound leg of my dual night cross country.  I had to take a couple of weeks off because of extensive travel, including some family vacations.  I’m back now, though, but headed to Oshkosh this week.  This means lots of content coming up hopefully.  For most of it, follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/billwil, and I’ll keep you updated.

In this episode, we did a dual night cross country from KCHD (Chandler) to KAVQ (Marana) which is in north Tucson.

KCHD-KAVQ (around Eloy)

Thanks again for listening, everyone.  I hope to see you at OSH!

Okay, everyone.  Oshkosh is once again upon us.  In case you don’t know already, yes, I’m going.  I had an out of town work conflict come up, so I need to be in the New York area for meetings on Tuesday, but I’m flying straight there on Wednesday morning.  Sadly, I’m flying as a passenger in a regional jet, so no front window view to Wittman Airport, but upon landing in Milwaukee, it’s a quick rental car drive to the real field of dreams.

It’s actually difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t been how incredible this gathering is, so I won’t try.  If you’ve been, then you know what I mean and we’ll leave it at that.  This is only my second year, and thanks in part to great new friends I made last year, I can’t imagine this year being any better…but I’m sure it will be, as I expand that list of aviation friends once again.  Last year, Kent (of The Pilot Cast), graciously picked me up at MKE in his Skylane and allowed me to experience the “fly-in” arrival as it was meant to be my first time.  Since I was a kid I had dreamed of that arrival, and I finally did it.  Twice, actually, as we picked someone else up later in the week.  Camping under the wing of a trusty Cessna 182…isn’t that what it’s all about?  Thanks, Kent.

This year, while arriving a bit later, I’ll be staying until the bitter-sweet end, all the way through Sunday.  Again, I’m camping, but this time I’ll be camping in the “drive-in” camping area of Camp Scholler.  A whole new experience to be had, I’m sure.  I’ll be near the base camp of many of the other new media folks who are gathering around MyTransponder’s RV.  I can’t wait to be there, and especially to be giving updates to all of you.

Now…to the real hope I have for this post.  Let me know if you’re going to OSH09 this year.  If so, and our schedules line up, I would love to meet you, the listeners and followers of Student Pilot Cast.  Use the contact link to let me know…or send me an email directly (listen to any episode for the address).  I firmly believe that the best part of this gathering are the personal relationships made or re-kindled, so let’s meet face to face if you’ll be there…have a beverage, and talk about learning to fly.  Follow me on twitter if you haven’t already, and send me a message there if you want to meet up real-time…that works, too.

If you’re not going to be there, stay tuned on twitter as well, as I will be updating what is going on as much as I can.  I’ll be attempting to release small episodes while there as well, but last year I was hampered by very limited connectivity.  Hopefully this year is better.  The only luck I ever had was the press link, but I had to be at a specific place on the grounds, and even then it was iffy.

In any case…that time of year is here again, and I feel very blessed to be a part of this great aviation community in general, as well as be amongst the great folks who represent new media in aviation.  I’m also very grateful to once again be making the annual migration to aviation Mecca.  I hope you all can join me there; if not in person, in spirit.  I’ll try to keep you posted.

Here is the last part of Podapalooza 2008 from Oshkosh.  I hope you enjoy.  Thanks for listening, and please don't forget to let me know you're out there.  Leave me some feedback using the contact link near the top of the page.

Hello everyone.  I'm happy to release part 1 of the 2008 edition of Podapalooza, which was recorded in Oshkosh at EAA Airventure.  Podapalooza is the gathering of aviation podcasters in Oshkosh each year.  As well as being released on this and many other feeds, this year it was broadcast live on EAA Radio as well as on the Internet. 

Participating in this year's event was, in the order they were sitting, Uncontrolled Airspace, The Student Pilot Cast, The Finer Points, Airspeed, and the Pilotcast (along with CFI cast).  Remoted in via skype was Will and Dave of the Pilot's Flight Pod Log.  Notably missing this year were new pilot, Greg, from the Student Pilot Journal and student pilot Jerry from VA Student Pilot.  I'm probably forgetting others as well, so forgive me.

 I also want to note that Airventure Today (the daily Airventure newspaper) did an article on the Podapalooza, so check that out if want to.

 I really enjoyed participating this year, and felt honored to be on the stage with so many talented people.  It's a great community of people in aviation.

Hello everyone.  I'm finally releasing the next episode in my student pilot saga.  In this episode, 16, I do an update direct from Oshkosh, WI for EAA Airventure 2008.  I wasn't able to get this published while still in Oshkosh because of very poor Internet access...but now that I'm home in Arizona I've got my acess back to normal.  I added a pre-script to the original episode that I recorded on location.  In this episode, a very important announcement is made, as well as some information on small changes to the podcast going forward.  Don't worry, nothing major will change...just more content, so it's all good.

In this release, I talk about following me on Twitter if you want, which you can do from this link.  If you don't know what Twitter is, take a look at the site and determine if this is useful to you.

That should do it.  Stay tuned in for more content from Oshkosh as well as more training.  I'll be updating you all soon.

Hello, everyone.  Sorry for the long delay.  I have not stopped flying...but I appreciate those of you who have asked or inquired.  In fact, if anything, I have intensified my training.  I'll try to do a quick audio update as well so those of you who don't get on the website will get an update as well...but this will have to do for now.

So...the other news is that I'm at Oshkosh.  I flew in with Kent from the PilotCast, which was very interesting.  This is my first trip to the mecca of general aviation, and I'm hoping to bring some good information to all of you who haven't made it this year.  I've got some really good updates coming for my training, too, but I'm putting those on hold for Air Venture, and will resume those next week.

You can follow me at Oshkosh on twitter (www.twitter.com/billwil) where I am attempting to update what I'm seeing and doing.  I've been seeing some great stuff, and I'll get you all some more information soon.  Stay tuned for more updates.