Pilot Mike’s Weblog

This week I flew commercial to San Jose for a trip to Cisco Headquarters for business and I had the opportunity to listen in to the flight deck on my flights out. Some airlines patch the ATC radio traffic into one of the audio channels at the seats which I think is awesome except for when the flight attendants cut into the feed for their announcements.

Discover what mistakes I observed on this commercial flight after the jump.

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Today on my drive home I was listing to the Shanin & Parks talk radio program on KMBZ. They were discussing a survey that came out about job satisfaction and several people called in discussing various aspects of their job satisfaction. It got me thinking if I could do anything at all what would it be? Don’t get me wrong, I love working as a Network Engineer and I feel I am pretty good at it, but I would probably do something in aviation like be a professional pilot (helicopter news gathering, helicopter police work, medical transport or maybe even a military pilot). I suddenly realize that I need to configure the new router interfaces for the new business partner coming online next week…

I realize that it has been a while since my last post and my thinking about aviation certainly does not echo the frequency of my posts here, however, I recently got a new computer and thought I would share a few quick high level notes on Windows Vista. Maybe my new system will allow me the time to post more frequently here.

Read all about my initial Windows Vista experience after the jump.

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On May 13th, I flew with a large group (12 planes and 41 people) from Air Associates, a FBO at Johnson County Executive Airport, down to Independence, Kansas to tour the Cessna Plant.

Read all about the flight planning and Cessna factory tour after the jump.

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Not sure where the last of winter went as far as flying goes. As soon as the first indication of nice weather comes it seems the evening and weekends go towards working outside in the yard and other things around the house. However, living close to a major training airport does not put flying out of my mind for too long.

Read all about my struggles on what my next training endeavor will be after the jump.

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Had some trouble sleeping last night (again) thinking about my next pilot training endeavor. I guess you know you are passionate about something when you can’t sleep thinking about it. I currently have about 215 hours and I need 250 to get my commercial and subsequently my CFI. My dilemma was if it was worthwhile to get my private helicopter rating as a time building to get towards my 250 hour mark; then take my commercial and CFI in the airplane.

Read about what advice a local CFI gave me about my “plan” after the jump.

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