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 reposting this as I just discovered that it was lost somehow.  My episode 16 from Oshkosh 2008 where I announced that I had achieved my private pilot.

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 (320×240) because of the sheer size of the 640×480 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.

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.

Okay, we’re back to the lessons. As you can see from the title, at this point in my training I have started learning the performance takeoffs and landings sometimes referred to as “Shorts” and “Softs”.  Within 4 day’s time I had three dual lessons on these performance landings and takeoffs.  I also take a moment in this episode to comment on a strategic mistake that I made in this part of my training.  Let this be a lesson for you all!

Enjoy the episode.  Please leave feedback or comments.

We have a very special episode of the audio cast today.  Yesterday, Jerry O’Sullivan from the Virginia Student Pilot podcast completed his first solo flight!  Well, we had a chance to talk today while it was fresh in his mind, and that’s the cast we have today.

The second big news of the day is that Jerry has finally released episode 5 (he was stuck on episode 4 for a while) of his cast.  He’s got a big backlog of stories, too, so we’re looking for more episodes from him over the coming weeks.  So I’m sure he will relate his first solo flight through his feed when he gets there in his podcast, you get to listen to some of that reflection today, along with other topics as well.

I really enjoyed speaking with Jerry, and I’m sure you all will enjoy this as well.  Thanks, Jerry, for spending this time with all of us.  If you aren’t subscribed to the Virginia Student Pilot podcast, check it out.  You’ll love it.  You can do so through iTunes…but if you don’t use iTunes, here is the proper feed to use:  RSS for VA Student Pilot feed.

Enjoy.

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 320×240 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 (640×480), 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.

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.