July 2008 Update : Have A preview of All New Bloggingpilots.com Version 2.0

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Items by David

October 02, 2008
12:09
Heading home, 2005
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Teterboro Airport, March 2005: loading bags into the Warrior for the flight home, after our first family trip to New York City. I’d been
September 30, 2008
10:22
Three things
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

See comments: Hamish made me strike one. Via Aviatrix, the challenge is to list three things I’ve done that I donR
September 24, 2008
8:51
Baseball and the Toronto Island Airport
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Toronto City Centre Airport (commonly called “Toronto Island”) is a great airport for baseball fans, since it’s only about a
September 20, 2008
19:08
Flying around Los Angeles
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

While I was in Pasadena on business this week, I rented a Piper Archer at El Monte Airport along with a glider-pilot friend (who sat in the
September 14, 2008
13:53
How we navigate
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

This BBC story describes a study about how the human brain navigates. On the street They hooked up London cabbies to an September 06, 2008
17:21
Talking to ATC: “you, me, where, what”
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

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 pu
August 17, 2008
11:08
(Unofficial) Canadian NOTAMs via RSS
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

I have added an experimental, alpha-quality feature to OurAirports: local Canadian Airport NOTAMs via RSS (scraped from the Nav Canada web site). If anyone is interested in trying this out, you need
August 08, 2008
20:30
OurAirports can geocode (!!)
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Today I overhauled the search system in OurAirports to use Google’s free July 08, 2008
17:55
500 members
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

A special welcome to usndario, the 500th member to join OurAirports.
July 01, 2008
17:44
CANPASS airport map
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

At my OurAirports account, I’ve added the tag canpass for all of the Canadian June 24, 2008
16:39
OurAirports-kapedia
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

OK, the name in the title sucks, but the good news is that OurAirports is now open to community contributions: any member can add a new airport or edit inform
June 22, 2008
10:28
Finding a customs airport
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

I’ve expanded my original OurAirports tagging to include all airports of entry and U.S. landing rights airports that I can find under Canadian or U.S. c
June 21, 2008
11:50
The Aerodrome of Democracy
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

As I mentioned in a previous post, OurAirports now lets you invent your own t
June 20, 2008
21:20
Tagging airports
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

In OurAirports, you can now tag airports any way you want, rather than just marking them as visited, and see a map for any tag. Here are two examples:

June 12, 2008
10:32
Where can I land that float plane?
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

OurAirports is getting better at filtering. While the maps still show everything, you can now filter most of the lists to show any of the following: active
June 11, 2008
20:25
Scheduled airline service
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

When pilots think of an airport, they think of anywhere they can safely and legally land their planes. It might or might not have a a fence, pavement, fuel pumps, or any structures at all (even an o
May 24, 2008
10:53
Partial panel
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

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 ind
10:37
OurAirports at DemoCamp Ottawa
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

I’ll be giving a short demo of OurAirports at May 11, 2008
17:41
Capital to Capitol
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

I flew from Ottawa, ON to Washington, DC (400 nm) today, with a few pilot firsts: First time flying south of the Mason-Dixon l

April 28, 2008
16:46
Death and immortality
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

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 lif
April 15, 2008
7:39
Pilot population trends
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

In the U.S., AOPA president Phil Boyer wants to know how to stop the pilot population from declining — it has falle
April 11, 2008
14:36
Canada/U.S. quiz #1: VFR operations
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

The allowed answers for each question are “Canada“, “U.S.“, “both“, or “neither” (for the sake of this quiz, “U.S.” refers only to the conti
April 08, 2008
15:47
N22309: an unlucky number
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

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 th
April 07, 2008
14:48
Cost of owning a plane in 2007
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Here’s what it cost to own and operate a 1979 Piper Warrior II in Ottawa, Canada in 2007 with 80 hours air time (a bit more flight time, of course). Since the US and Canadian dollars are basica
March 28, 2008
19:41
Dead airspeed indicator
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

The incident I flew through some light snow showers on my way to Kingston with my daughter this morning, so I turned on the pitot heat just before joining the circuit to make sure the pitot blade wa

March 05, 2008
17:11
Less time for Aviation
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

As of this week I have less time for aviation. No, it's not the bureaucracy, nor the weather, nor a lack of motivation - it's just that after several months of unemployment, I've now got a job.
February 25, 2008
13:58
First Passenger Flight
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

After visibility thwarted my first attempt to bring H flying last week, yesterday's weather more than made up for it. There was a nice, steady, 10 knots blowing; some scattered cloud at 2,

February 18, 2008
22:04
OurAirports: terrain view
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

A couple of months ago, Google Maps quietly added a Terrain layer to their maps. I’ve enabled that in OurAirports now, so that you can get at least a r

February 06, 2008
15:28
CAVOK - let's go flying
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

CAVOK -Visibility greater or equal to 10 km, no cumulonimbus, no cloud below 5,000 ft or highest minimum sector altitude (MSA) (whichever is the greater) and no weather significant to aviation. Despi

February 02, 2008
12:46
Data wants to be free
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

I’ve finally gotten around to adding free data downloads to OurAirports. You can now download nightly January 24, 2008
15:59
Gimli glider’s last Air Canada flight
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

You’ve probably all seen this already, but today the Gimli Glider takes January 21, 2008
20:36
It’s the runways, stupid
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Here’s a statement from the U.S. Air Transport Association (ATA) — the airlines’ lobby group — about January 17, 2008
14:27
OurAirports: heliports and floatplane bases
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

OurAirports now includes heliports and floatplane bases as well as fixed-wing airports: in the last 24 hours I’ve added 828 floatplane bases and 5,911 h
January 12, 2008
15:41
Add local places to airports
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Any logged-in member can now add placemarks to the map for local spots at an airport (FBOs, visitor parking, fuel, restaurant, customs, or whatever), and more importantly, anyone — even Anonymou
December 21, 2007
10:07
Global orgasm for peace
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Pilots often already have their watches set to UTC, so this should be easy. At the exact minute of the winter solstice tonight, at 06:08 UTC, is the second annual December 02, 2007
15:38
In praise of flying a trainer
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

From a news story about a new U.S.-run military flight training school in Iraq: The mission shift is particularly
November 30, 2007
22:04
In praise of flight attendants
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Like pilots, flight attendants are highly-trained professionals; remember that next time you’re tempted to treat one
November 26, 2007
17:06
Now what?
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

In about 650 hours of flying — most of it in my Warrior — I’ve seen and done just about everything I can see and do at this level and live to tell about it. I’ve flown into bu

November 22, 2007
16:43
More Medical Woes
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

My quest to get a Class 1 medical is struggling. I have some more testing to do but at the moment the chances of passing the JAR Class 1 is very slim. I went to a specialist today to see w
November 19, 2007
18:07
Flying's Good
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

I got a quick hop in the other day. The schedule at the school got bounced around a bit so it meant the last slot of the day was freed up for an opportunist airport bum. Knowing that
October 23, 2007
5:16
Here it is, the licence.
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

It has taken me a week to put it up here but I actually had this less than 24 hours after passing the test.&n
October 16, 2007
17:59
Finally. I am a pilot.
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

I did it. Finally. It was a perfect day for it. Clear skies, with scattered fluffiness and a moderate wind from the north-west. The ground work went well and the examiner's inspection of the fligh
October 02, 2007
17:29
No I hadn't given up
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

I hadn't given up. A bad dose of sinusitus and badly needed holiday to Rome explains my lack of activity recently. So what's new? Well, I went flying today - just a few circuits to by way

10:21
Unintended consequences
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

In the U.S., in an attempt to avoid user fees for general aviation, AOPA (the main G.A. advocacy group) worked with the FAA to outsource flight services (briefings, VFR flight plans, etc.) to Lockheed
September 30, 2007
17:33
Some French aviation terms
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Novelist Hugh MacLennan referred to the English and French in Canada as Two Solitudes, but that’s not a great working model for aviation
September 21, 2007
21:32
Cuba
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

Cuba has a nice selection of small-town/rural airports, including many with good, paved runways, judging from the satellite views. When I zoom
September 17, 2007
14:26
Forced landing near Rockcliffe
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

About three hours ago, a homebuilt Zenith 250 lost power after takeoff from Ottawa/Rockcliffe (my home airport) and made a forced landing in a wooded area a couple of miles east of the airport (

September 13, 2007
13:57
Grounded.
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

Since late last week - around the time of the flight test actually - I've been having sinus problems. Last weekend was one long energy slump and the last couple of days haven't be great either.&

September 11, 2007
6:54
“Crash” redefined (again)
» ‎ Land and Hold Short

For pilots, the word “crash” generally means an high-speed, uncontrolled descent into the ground or similar collision with terrain (such as hitting a mountain in level flight), followed by

September 06, 2007
16:46
Not This Time
» ‎ Clear of Cloud

Well two hours fifteen minutes of flying and I'm still a student. I failed the test and I'm wrecked. I'm not going into a blow by blow here but stuff was likely to go wrong was fine and stuff that n