Desert Pilot Podcast

This morning I took my Form 5 checkride and passed. A few weeks ago I talked about how I had joined the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and am having a blast. There is a link on the side bar too. I joined to help build my flight hours and also the idea of low-level search and rescue (SAR) sounds fun to me too. Today was the first step to be coming a SAR mission pilot I took what is called the Form 5 flight evaluation which basically lets everyone know that you are serious about flying for CAP. What it is, is a mini private pilot checkride that is very relaxed. What we did was took-off from Chandler and stayed over the farm fields between there and Casa Grande. Did some things like steep turns, stalls, turns around a point, and landings. I didn't do everything perfect (maybe I'm too hard on myself) but I thought I did well and my instructor did too and passed me. Like I said this is just the first step. Getting the Form 5 means I can rent a CAP plane if I want which I pay and I can also...

This is my new DIY camera clip that I made to hold my my camera and clip it to the dash board. I drilled a hole in the top and put a screw in there it worked pretty well. As you can tell from the video. Went to Payson, AZ to take some pics of a train set my Grandpa wants me to sell on ebay . I still need flight time so flew. It's just over 50nm but climbs 4000ft. in elevation so the ground comes up to meet you. View CHD to PAN in a larger map Started in Chandler 0530 trying to beat the heat it was still just about 90F when I left. Mt. Ord Me Flying back into the valley about 0930 just under 100F

View CHD-U77 in a larger map Still trying to get my 250nm solo cross country I decided to fly to Utah last Wednesday. Jessica had driven up with her mom the to be where it is cool and help her grandma. The plan was to fly up on Wednesday and back on Friday. Although I was taking a faster Cessna 172 it couldn't make the 455nm flight to Spanish Fork so I had to stop somewhere for fuel The flight was going great until I got to Page, AZ, my planned stop for fuel. The landing I made was beautiful if I don't say so, but it was really rough after the nose wheel touched so I taxied off. Low and behold the nose tire was flat. So 2 1/2 hours later because of the incompetency of the mechanic there I was back in the air. The stay in Utah was great nice cool air and temps with a wonderful wife. Friday on the way back everything was great until I got to Page. I landed, fueled up everything seemed normal got in the plane the thing wouldn't start. The starter wasn't engaging the prop....

I went Flying with David, from the Phoenix Pilot Group meetup, who needed to do some instrument approaches to stay IFR current. You don't need a instructor to do this just another pilot. He had a great just over 10 year old Bonanza in great shape and flew just as well. We flew from Gateway an the did some VOR, GPS, and ILS approches in to Coolidge and Case Grande until coming back and doing 2 into Gateway to make it 6. under the hood beautiful morning me more of the valley