Author Archives: Rory

Crashed WWII P-40 Discovered in the Desert

By Rory | Published: May 12, 2012
This is an amazing story about an undiscovered (until recently) WWII fighter plane… Preserved P-40 discovered in the Egyptian desert 200 miles from nowhere. A WWII airman apparently, while flying in Egypt fighting against Rommel ditched in the desert, survived, and tragically perished while trying to hike out of the sands with no rescue and [...]
Posted in Curtiss, Fighters, P-40, WWII | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Awesome Video: 747 Freighter passes up an MD-11 Freighter

By Rory | Published: May 11, 2012
Somewhere over the North Atlantic, faced with several potential hours of boredom and tedium, a 747 FO just so happened to have a camera has he passed under this MD-11 rig in his own, going at a slightly faster clip. Tweet This Post
Posted in 747, Aviation Videos, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, MD-11 | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Bay Area Man Builds Wicked 737 Flight Simulator in his Garage

By Rory | Published: April 24, 2012
An air traffic controller in the bay area has an extremely detailed homebuilt 737 simulator in his garage. It includes a cockpit reclaimed from a Lufthansa 737. He said that 90% of the 737 systems in his simulator are operational, and he has invested over $300k over the years in making the simulator as realistic [...]
Posted in Homebuilt Flight Simulators, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Simulators | Tagged , | Leave a comment

My First Solo Flight by the Numbers

By Rory | Published: April 16, 2012
My first solo started as a normal flight, where my instructor and I first went around the pattern 3 times. My instructor had me then drop him off at taxiway Juliet between 19L and the taxi way Charlie. The tower approved that, and he sat, awkwardly in the grass among the jets pushing back from [...]
Posted in Airports, Flying Solo, KSNA - John Wayne - Santa Ana, Learn to Fly | Tagged | 2 Comments

Girl Blown Away by Jet in St. Maarten

By Rory | Published: April 10, 2012
This can just ruin your day. Watch out for spooling jet engines, folks. Girl blown by jet Tweet This Post
Posted in A320, Airbus, Airplane Spotting, St. Maarten | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Flying photographer doesn’t ‘work’ for living

By Rory | Published: April 5, 2012
What’s a better job than aerial photography? I can’t think of many, especially here in Southern California. I know that when I get my commercial license, that aerial photography will be pretty high on my to do list, especially if I can recruit someone to take the photos while I do the flying. Pilots have [...]
Posted in General Aviation | Leave a comment

Snake on a plane diverts solo cargo flight

By Rory | Published: April 5, 2012
Of course this happened in Australia, a place where the wildlife lurks behind every bush waiting to destroy humanity… CANBERRA, Australia—An Australian pilot said he was forced to make a harrowing landing reminiscent of a Hollywood thriller after a snake popped out from behind his dashboard and slithered across his leg during a solo cargo [...]
Posted in Funny Flying Stories | Leave a comment

Complex Time with a Retractable Gear 172

By Rory | Published: January 10, 2012
A complex aircraft has flaps, retractable landing gear, and an adjustable pitch propeller. Believe it or not, I have used a Groupon more than once to get a flying lesson at a flying school that I would not otherwise have visited. As a result, I have had the opportunity to fly a complex Cessna 172 [...]
Posted in Complex Aircraft, Learn to Fly, My Private Pilot Training, Private Pilot | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Flying the Rocky Mountains

By Rory | Published: December 20, 2011
It has been a goal of mine to go flying in my old hometown for a long time. I knew that I wanted to fly with a flight school at KBJC, Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (Formerly Jeffco Airport) in Broomfield, CO. I found McAir Aviation, they have a fantastic modern fleet of training aircraft. We [...]
Posted in Airports, KAPA - Centennial, KBJC - Rocky Mountain Metropolitan, Learn to Fly | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Cross Country to Camarillo

By Rory | Published: October 21, 2011
My instructor had a commendable amount of patience as he walked me through the ins and outs of flight planning. I sat mostly stumped trying to remember high school algebra that was dusty as hell somewhere in the back of my head. Since I just passed the private pilot written exam, I knew that some [...]
Posted in KCMA - Camarillo, KSMO - Santa Monica, KSNA - John Wayne - Santa Ana, Learn to Fly | Leave a comment

Studying for the Private Pilot Written Exam

By Rory | Published: September 23, 2011
One of my best purchases in my student pilot career has definitely been my iPad. I have been studying for my private pilot written exam with the Study Buddy app released by Sporty’s. The Private Pilot version is $10 and has 700+ questions to review to prepare for the Private Pilot Written exam. I started [...]
Posted in Learn to Fly | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Not winning a plane

By Rory | Published: August 29, 2011
In July, The 1940 Terminal Air Museum at Houston Hobby Airport held their annual drawing to win a raffle plane. Unlike Sporty’s drawing, or the one for AOPA, I actually thought that there may be a decent chance with this one since they (the museum folks who run the drawing) promise to only sell a [...]
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Weather creates chaos at Sun N Fun

By Rory | Published: April 1, 2011
Nothing will ruin a picnic quicker than some bad weather. No one knows this better than pilots. The best way to ruin a pilot’s day is by putting them in the middle of bad weather. This year’s Sun N Fun fly-in took a turn for the most unpleasant as a tornado reportedly touched down in [...]
Posted in Sun N Fun, Weather | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Kona – The Departure

By Rory | Published: March 9, 2011
This post should have been the first one, but I just now was able to get these awesome videos uploaded. On taxi to run up, the controller gave us our choice of what runway to use. We picked runway 17 because we were closer to that end of the field. During run up, a UPS [...]
Posted in Airports, Cross Country, Learn to Fly, PHKO - Kona at Keahole - KOA | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments