The Student Pilot Cast

I'm back SPC listeners!  I've had no time to produce new episodes for a while, but I forced myself tonight...and put off some other stuff.  So what we have is another training episode, Episode 21, "Good Freakin' Flight".  This is a solo flight that I took after returning from my Dive trip, and this was the next flight in my training after the night flight that was covered in episodes 19 and 20.

I hope you enjoy this episode, and I'll try to be more consistant with the releases going forward.  Please give me feedback as always.  Also, I'm working on a couple of videos, including the video from the flight covered in this episode as well as a tutorial on how to record in cockpit audio, as this is my most frequently asked question from listeners.  This is in addition to a start that I've got on the next audio episode as well.

As usual, for up to date information on flights, feel free to follow me on twitter.  Thanks again, everyone.  Get out there and fly!

I’m back, after an exclusive one month tour of Europe, Scandinavia, and…no, that’s not true.  In fact, I’ve just been really busy, and haven’t had a chance to finish this episode up and send it out on the feed.  Bad me, I know.  So, we skipped September in the podcast…I’ll try to make it up to you all.

Here is episode 20, the second and final part of my first night flight around the Phoenix area.  As I said in the audio, I really enjoyed this flight a lot.  Now that I have my license, I need to do some more night flying.

Enjoy the episode, and by all means, let me know what you think of the podcast.

Hello patient Student Pilot Cast listeners.  I'm back again with a training flight, which happens to be my first night flight...as well as a few other firsts.  We basically to take a tour of the Phoenix Valley at night.  Very cool.

I broke this into two parts because it was a long flight with quite a bit going on.  I hope you enjoy.  Don't forget to give me feedback.

Shooting 'em out rapid-fire, now, folks.  Here's another episode of the Student Pilot Cast, number 15, about a flight in which we focused on VORs and Simulated Instrument Conditions (The Hood).  I had passed my Phase II Check, and I was starting on Phase III.  I hope you enjoy.

Episode 14 is here!  Today we'll follow a dual lesson that I had to prep for the Stage II Stage Check.  Now that I had been introduced to shorts and softs, and had some time to practice, it was time to finish stage II.  Before I could do this stage check, though, I had to prep with my instructor.  That's what this lesson and episode is about.  We practiced steep turns, minimum controllable airspeed, power on and power off stalls, emergency procedures, and a couple more short and soft landings.

Thanks for listening.  I hope you enjoy episode 14.

It's time for another video episode, episode 3, Reference This.  In this episode, I take a solo practice flight to the practice area to go over Ground Reference Maneuvers. 

I'm including the smaller version again in this feed (320x240) because of the sheer size of the 640x480 versions (400 MB).  I've heard from a couple of you commenting that you would rather have the larger version...and I still may consider that, but these files just seem too large for a simple podcast.  The embedded video from Vimeo in this post is pretty high quality, so if you desire a more detailed version, maybe this will suffice.  For those of us who watch video podcasts on a handheld device, the smaller version will suffice.  Again...if I hear from more of you wanting the larger versions of these, I will consider changing this, or adding a High Quality feed for the larger videos.

Thanks for taking the time to watch.  As usual, I'd love to know what you think, so shoot off an email or use the contact page on the website.

Here is the embedded version of the video.

Use the Feed Link 

This is an episode about a solo flight I took to practice ground reference maneuvers.  I also take the opportunity to share portions of an email I received from David Allen, a future pilot who's email summarized in an eloquent way what several people have said to me since I started this.  I asked David for permission to share his email, and he graciously allowed me to.  Thanks, David, for the kind words, the motivation to keep producing more episodes, and allowing me to share it.  Like I say in the episode itself, contact and notes from people like David are the only compensation that podcasters like me get for the hours put into production and planning.  Letters from David and others like him make it well worth it.

So, if you would like to contact me, feel free to do so at the email address mentioned in the episode, or simply click on the contact link on this website and let me know what you think.  Up next I'll be finishing up Stage II, and it will be on to the cross country work in stage III.  I hope you hang with me...there's a lot more to come.

Hey…look at this.  Finally a video episode!  It’s been a long time coming, I know.  I hope you enjoy it.

There are some problems with the video which I explain a bit about in this episode, but I decided to use some of the video anyway as I think it will still be interesting.  Also, I rendered this mp4 video at 320x240 pixels to save space.  This should work well on most portable video players…but won’t look quite as good viewing on a computer of TV screen.  I do have a standard definition version (640x480), but it is a whopping 227 MB as opposed to 94 MB, so I went with the smaller one.  Please let me know if you would prefer the larger, clearer versions of this and future video podcasts or the smaller ones that I’m releasing.  Based partially on this feedback, I will make future decisions on the rendering of future videos (and may even change this one).

In this video I show some of the flight that I talked about in the audio episode 10, “Sometime You Just Feel Like a Pilot”.  All of the commentary and insight about the flight is in the audio cast; this video is simply a compilation of parts of that flight for your viewing pleasure.  The main discussions still happen in the audiocast…so simply put, the video is not a replacement for the audio…they are for different purposes.

Thanks again for listening and watching.  Please let me know what you think of the video.  The quality will be better next time…but feel free to comment on the content, length, flow, etc., so I can try to make my next one even better.

StudentPilotCast-V002-20080617.mp4

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.

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. :)

This is after my three landings back at the ramp.  That's a happy pilot.

I hope you enjoy the episode.  Thanks for listening, and please give me any feedback by clicking on the "contact" link on the top/right of the homepage.

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.