Student Pilot Journal

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Flying Today

2010-03-30T11:30:00.002-04:00

A beautiful day for flying here in Florida. We had some storms roll in Sunday evening and stay through early afternoon yesterday. Today is crystal clear...for now. Going up for a lesson with Casey to do some instrument work. I believe we will do some basic hood work and then if we have time we will work on some VOR tracking and intercepting. I had to break out the books to get re-familiar with it again. As I always say....work gets in the way of the things that you really want to do. I will mount the video camera and at least capture the footage. I don't know when I will get back on track for editing, but at least I am capturing the moments so keep checking back. In the meantime, I have something to throw out to you all the viewers.....if you all are still out there. :-) I get email from time to time from student pilots that are beginning their training. I enjoy hearing your stories. If any of you are interested I will like to post photos with a short story or description of where you are training and any other useful information. Video is welcome as well as long as it is of decent quality. I will create a location to upload video so please do not try to email videos. I would like to include some of this in future podcasts...maybe at the end of the video segments. You can contact me at greg@studentpilotjournal.com for any details....especially when it comes to video since maybe some formats work better than others in the editing process.

Greg

Student Pilot Journal Podcast News

2010-01-08T16:11:00.004-05:00

January 8, 2010 News update

Here is a short video to talk about a few things. This is mainly to introduce the Student Pilot Journal Podcast Facebook fan page but I will also talk about a few other topics as well.

-Greg

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Student Pilot Journal Podcast #26

2009-12-30T22:56:00.002-05:00

Peter Jensen Instrument Flight Part II

I am digging in my backlog and getting motivated during the holidays to put out a podcast....finally. I must say that it feels good. I always enjoy the publishing part! This is part 2 of SPJ 22 for Peter Jensen's Instrument cross country flight. Peter has since completed his training and is an instrument rated pilot. Although he has had the rating for a while now, I still congratulate him on completing the training. I will continue to dig through my videos to see what else I have to publish while I prepare for the next podcasts.

Greg Summers

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Marathon Key Trip on YouTube

2009-07-04T09:41:00.002-04:00

I have posted a short video on YouTube for the Marathon Key flight. The trip was great. We filed IFR both ways so I was able to get in the clouds a little bit....more like "around" for the most part, but it was fun and further justifies my need for an instrument rating. Flying around the storms was truly a sight to see and seeing the tops of rainbows was interesting. Be sure to subscribe to the Student Pilot Journal YouTube channel. Occasionally I will be posting quick blurbs that may not be good enough for a full podcast. Here is the video on YouTube:

Student Pilot Journal Podcast #25

2009-06-22T10:05:00.002-04:00

Status Update:

Hello everyone! A quick status update of what is going on. I am getting ready for my trip to marathon key this Friday. I am hoping that the weather does not put it on hold so we are crossing our fingers. This will be good for me since I have not been able to fly much lately. After this trip I can add one more place to go for the wife and fam. I generally like to fly there first so I don't have any surprises when my wife is flying with me. I know some of you may say that is part of the fun....but....yea....not for me. :-)

http://www.fla-keys.com/marathon/marathon_airport.cfm

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Student Pilot Journal in Flight Training Magazine

2009-06-18T09:13:00.002-04:00

Thanks to my instructor, Casey Allen, Student Pilot Journal was mentioned in the latest edition of Flight Training Magazine. A few weeks back Casey sent an email to the magazine and we were both surprised to see it made it in. To summarize, it mentions how I documented my flight training for my PPL with Video and Audio. Thanks Casey!

On another note, I will be flying to the Keys at the end of the month (Marathon) with a few friends. I asked Casey to ride along since I have never flown there. He has been down there several times. I plan to take some video as well. I still have a number of flights in the queue waiting to be edited but work has been non stop since the beginning of the year and my workflow was interrupted when I switched to the Mac. In the end I know that it will be easier but I am still getting used to working in a new video editing program. I still have not started much of anything on the instrument training so when that gets rolling, you should start to see a lot of video uploaded. I have decided that I want to have everything in line to do non stop training, just as I did for my PPL. That seems to work best for me. Talk to you all later!

-Greg

Student Pilot Journal Podcast #24

2008-11-18T22:09:00.004-05:00

SPJ Audio and Video Capturing:

This podcast will answer 2 of the most frequently asked questions and that is how I capture audio and video for the podcast. This video will also feature 2 products from a company called Foreflight- Foreflight Checklist and Foreflight Mobile. Below is a direct link to the audio cable and camera mount that I will feature as well as links to Foreflight.

Audio Cable:

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pspages/patchcord.php

Camera Mount:

http://www.stickypod.com/osc/product_info.php?products_id=32&osCsid=eb3c4380ec950d35e78837898785b437

Foreflight:

http://www.foreflight.com

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-Greg

Student Pilot Journal Podcast #23

2008-11-11T10:17:00.004-05:00

Instrument Flying Lesson 1

I took my first instrument flying lesson. Not much video to look at, but at least it is documented. As you can imagine there is not much of a visual when doing instrument training. It also did not help that I forgot my camera mount so my apologies for the less than average quality and the audio has some noise issues. I edited the audio the best that I could to cut out the scratchiness that you may hear from time to time. Suggestions for future instrument podcasts are always welcome. Just like the private training...it is always an experiment to capture the training effectively.

-Greg
greg@studentpilotjournal.com

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Lunch in New Smyrna

2008-10-16T21:51:00.004-04:00

Hello everyone. The weather finally improved this week enough to get some flying in. I have not been able to fly as much as i have wanted to lately. Work has been hectic among other things. Today I took off early and picked my sister up and we flew for a late lunch to New Smyrna (EVB). Sorry David....I left work early so I knew you could not go...and that 152 is tiny... :-) I promise we will go soon.....anyway...There is a great little restaurant off of the airport called Stellas Skyline Cafe. I have been there a couple of times before and the trip is fairly uneventful so it was a good choice. The weather was great with a few bumps. Clouds stayed scattered at 3500 and apparently everyone had the same idea as me for flying 2500. I contacted Orlando Approach for flight following and they were constantly updating all of us at the same altitude. I tried to get the club 172 or the Archer but they were both reserved so I opted for the 152. What a long trip...weighing in at an hour to get there. I followed the interstate and I swore cars were passing me.

In the next week or so I will be filming a new podcast. This one will be a little different. Often I am asked how I record video and audio so I figured it would be a good opportunity to answer that in a podcast. I will also be showing off some iPhone apps as well. I have been using foreflight mobile and I recently purchased "Checklist" from the same vendor. I need to get the iPhone suction mount first. The company is on back order for the cradle that the phone sits in. Anyway, be on the lookup for that in a couple of weeks when I can coordinate an flight to show it all off.

-Greg

Student Pilot Journal Podcast #22

2008-08-11T01:08:00.003-04:00

Part 1:

Please welcome fellow club member Peter Jensen to this weeks video podcast. Peter is currently pursuing his instrument rating with Casey Allen as his instructor. This video documents Part 1 of a 250 NM cross country. I enjoyed riding along on this one as I am gearing up for my instrument training as well. For Florida, this is about as much as you get for instrument conditions. Enjoy!

-Greg

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Student Pilot Journal Podcast #21

2008-08-02T22:05:00.002-04:00

Flying With Jason:

Man...it's been a long time since I did an episode...so sorry. I have been flying a little, although not near as much as when I was training. I have a few flights on video, but finding the time to edit has been an issue. I finally made myself sit down and get this one out. This is a flight with my good friend Jason. We did not fly anywhere in particular, but Jason was able to get some good pictures and we got enough altitude to get a smooth flight. I will try to be more consistent in the future and put out more episodes. Here are some photos from this podcast flight:

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Flying Today (As a New Private Pilot)

2008-06-29T23:49:00.012-04:00

Sorry to be out of touch. It is funny how I was building up to this grand finale of getting my Private Pilot License and then I put a video saying I passed it but I never put any text on the blog that I passed the checkride.....so....I PASSED THE CHECKRIDE!!!! YIPPEEE!!!

I have been able to fly every weekend this month, but I was not shooting any video. Today I took up my friend Jason, and he took some pictures and we got some video so I will get out a podcast soon. On another note, I got a chance to talk to a student pilot this evening who has a podcast that you should check out. His name is Bill Williams and he is the host of The Student Pilot Cast. He has a few audio podcasts as well as a couple of video podcasts. Bill had emailed me right after my checkride, but I finally got around to actually talking to him last night and today. Be on the lookout for a podcast with the 2 of us. We have been bouncing some ideas off each other for future podcasts. Be sure to check out his blog here.

Aside from flying the norm, I got a chance to fly in a 2007 Cirrus SR22 G3 Turbo. A friend of my instructors took me up as a treat for passing the checkride. Can you say...nice? Can you say...AC?

Student Pilot Journal Podcast #20

2008-06-01T23:31:00.003-04:00

No flight video yet. Just me talking for a minute or two. That is all I will say. More flying videos to come.

-Greg

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Student Pilot Journal Podcast #19

2008-05-28T14:09:00.002-04:00

Checkride Update and Status:

This is a brief update of what has been going on. My checkride is scheduled for tomorrow, May 29, 2008. Sorry, but no flight video...just me driving. I am stuck on editing the Seneca flight, because I have not had time to put music to it. Hopefully, I will be able to post something after the checkride.

-Greg

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Checkride Scheduled

2008-05-21T20:51:00.002-04:00

I finally got a date for the checkride. It is scheduled for Thursday, May 29. Flying has been sporadic this month due to various aircraft maintenance issues and environmental reasons. We have had some major forest fires in the area and the division of forestry put a TFR out that included Valkaria so that caused a weeks worth of headaches because we could not even get to the plane to fly it somewhere else. I got checked out last night for the 172 so that will be good. When I pass the ckeckride I will be able to take a couple of people and actually carry some fuel. :-) I don't really have any new video to show since we have only been drilling in the same maneuvers over and over. I have been editing a flight that I took in a Piper Seneca so I will at least show that and also give a brief video update of my progress before the flight video. Stay tuned.

Student Pilot Journal Podcast #18

2008-04-26T10:06:00.002-04:00

Check Ride Prep

A little late, but here is the footage for the short and soft field takeoffs and landings. I also included another day in here due to the fact that my camera continued to fall throughout the short/soft video. The last half of the podcast documents our return to basic maneuvers such as power on and power off stalls and emergency procedures. As of this journal entry things are progressing as planned. We are having some difficulty scheduling an FAA examiner, though. The DPE that the club primarily uses is having a medical issue that is under review from the FAA. Our other option is an airline pilot from Merritt Island. Unfortunately due to the current Delta/Northwest merger, he has been out of reach...not sure what the deal is with that. -Enjoy

Greg

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Student Pilot Journal Podcast #17

2008-04-06T15:10:00.005-04:00

This episode documents my long cross country from Valkaria (X59) to Pahokee (PHK) to Vero Beach (VRB) and back to Valkaria. Aside from a couple more hours of hood work, this flight marks the completion of Part 61 requirements for the private pilot certificate. To date I have logged just over 40 hours and move on to my next phase of check ride prep. Yesterday we brushed up on short and soft field landings and I will release the video footage for that later in the week. For this episode I left in a lot of radio work, since that covers most of the CC. Towards the end of the video we have some humerous audio from Miami approach which proved to be entertaining for my wife and I when we watched the orginal footage. Maybe it is one of those "you had to be there" moments but I enjoyed it. Enjoy.

-Greg

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FAA Private Pilot Written Exam.....Passed!!!

2008-04-01T13:15:00.004-04:00

I took my private pilot written exam this morning and passed with a 92%. I can't help but be bummed that I did not score higher, but I am trying to look past it and realize that I am through with the written and can focus on check ride prep. Weather and skill level permitting, I should be able to take my checkride this month. I picked up a copy of the PTS (Practical Test Standards) and oral exam guide and we will take the PTS along with us when we fly to go over each manuever and mark them as pass/fail to get ready for the test. I need to squeeze in a couple hours of instrument but we can do that during prep. I am so excited and of course nervous, but will be glad when I can pass the checkride. Thanks for all of the emails and feel free to contact me anytime at greg@studentpilotjournal.com.

Thanks,

Greg

Student Pilot Journal Podcast #16

2008-03-29T11:36:00.006-04:00

First Solo Cross Country!

This episode of the Student Pilot Journal documents my first successful solo cross country from Valkaria (X59) to Pahokee (PHK). Notice that I said successful. I had previously tried to accomplish it but low ceilings caused me to play it safe and turn around about 15 miles out. Better safe than sorry. I chose to get flight following for the entire CC. I have to say that flight following makes things so much easier. It never hurts to have another set of eyes on your route. This episode only shows the trip to PHK. I forgot to plug the audio cable into the camera when I changed tapes at Pahokee so the trip back was noisy. It was probably a good thing because I started back trying to hook up with Melbourne's VOR at the North side of the lake and soon discovered how flaky the VOR is. I can only imagine what my ground track looked like as I was trying to intercept it. All in all things went very well aside from my Pahokee landing which was way off centerline due to slacking on the sideslip over the runway. Crosswinds are commonplace at Pahokee airport.

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Lake Okeechobee

Steve Tupper From Airpseed Podcast Visit

2008-03-19T14:19:00.004-04:00

Throughout my flight training and this podcast I have been talking back and forth with Steve Tupper from The Airspeed Podcast. Early on I learned what a huge aerospace junkie he was. I never claim to know too much about it myself....hey...I just work there. IT guys can be fairly involved in their work, you know. Forget everything else. :-) Early in the year he had made mention of a planned trip to Kennedy Space Center which is literally just down the street from my office so I offered him a tour of our satellite processing facility at Astrotech. Last week we were able to meet and it was a pleasure to have him. Of course we talked a good bit about flying and then proceeded with the tour. I am sure most of you reading this are well aware of Steve and his podcast, but if you are not please check it out here. He is just as nice in person as he is in the podcast. I hope to meet up with him again in the future. It truly is amazing how you can meet people through the podcasting medium.

Student Pilot Journal Podcast #15

2008-03-18T07:39:00.002-04:00

Dual Cross Country

This is the video for the dual cross country from Melbourne to Okeechobee. See the blog post from Feb. 15 for details on the flight.

-Greg

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Student Pilot Journal Podcast #14

2008-03-09T08:48:00.003-04:00

Night Flying

This was my first introduction to a number of things. Night flying, a Cessna 172, right hand traffic pattern at an unfamiliar airport, and takeoff from a towered airport. The video quality is extremely dark, so in an attempt to make things somewhat better I increased the resolution of the video to 640x480 so you might make out some objects so this is the reason for the larger download. It is still pretty dark, though. There is some good audio for those interested in what is different with night flying.

-Greg

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Student Pilot Journal Podcast #13

2008-02-24T10:59:00.002-05:00

Solo Flying

It has taken me longer than I wanted to get this one out. I have probably accumulated another 10 hours since this one. I have had the flu and have not felt up to editing the last couple of weeks. Not the most interesting of my podcasts, but hey.....flying is cool anyway you put it. My goal was to catch the sun rising but ground fog rolled in just when I was set to taxi out so I had to postpone for an hour. It is just me by myself talking so not too much in the educational department. Enjoy!

-Greg

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First Dual Cross Country

2008-02-15T13:47:00.005-05:00

Yesterday we flew our first dual cross country. I flew the 172 (N183SP) from Melbourne (MLB) to Okeechobee (OBE). Flight time was 35 minutes. For this cross country we used pilotage and dead reckoning for navigating. I really enjoyed navigating this way. Although the trip was short, it is interesting to see just how accurate the sectionals are. I managed to stay fairly accurate to the estimated airspeed (105 kts.). I was surprised at how quickly the checkpoints arrived. Once I calculated the time it took us to get from our first checkpoint to the second, it was time to look for the next checkpoint. After the next checkpoints, Casey asked me if I could see my next major landmark. Well.....if you look at a map of Florida, there is this gigantic body of water in the south central part of Florida. I pondered for a few moments and looked at my sectional only to see no more checkpoints, but I did not see anything that jumped out at me. Little did I know that about 15 miles in front of me was the huge lake of Florida known as...well....Lake Okeechobee. Once I saw that, I knew the airport was close. We had an uneventful landing and went inside to have some coffee and take a short break. They had a complimentary coffee/cappuccino/french vanilla/hot chocolate....you get the picture, machine in the lounge so I enjoyed a french vanilla and managed to scald the tar out of the roof of my mouth so needless to say nothing tasted the same for the rest of the night. On our way back to Melbourne, I got a little off course because I read from the sectional a bend in the Florida Turnpike that was a bend off to the west so I was flying about 5 miles west of our ground track. Other than that, the trip went fine for my first one. What did I learn? Don't focus so much on too much detail in the sectional. See the big picture. The sectionals are very detailed and when something is just off of the right of your ground track....it really is...just off to your right. The scale is much closer than I was thinking. Also, stay ahead of the airplane. I always know this, but easier said than done when your 3500. And the last thing - get a kneeboard so you’re not fumbling with everything when the ride is bumpier than expected. Our next cross country scheduled next Thursday is from Melbourne (MLB) to Lakeland (LAL) to Orlando Executive (ORL) and back to Melbourne. I have already started plotting the course. I should learn a lot on this one seeing as how both LAL and ORL are Class D airspace.

-Greg