January 28, 2023
Today in MSFS I’m checking out the Cessna L-19 “Bird Dog”, starting off at the Bien Hoa Air Base in Vietnam. The L-19 was introduced in 1950 as a light, 2-seat observation, artillery spotting, and liaison airplane for the Army after the Air Force split away on its own. The L-19 is similar is aerodynamic […]
January 18, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m flying the Bede BD-5J, the world’s smallest jet, famous for being flown by Roger Moore as James Bond in Octopussy. The BD-5J is very popular at airshows, so I’m flying it today out of Oshkosh (Whitman Regional Airport, KOSH) in Wisconsin. The BD-5 was designed in the late 1960s […]
January 17, 2023
Today I reenacted French aviator Louis Blériot’s historic 1909 crossing of the English Channel, in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Louis Blériot was a French engineer who invented the first practical headlight for automobiles. After building a successful headlight business, he turned his attention to the experimental field of aviation. The Blériot XI, built in 1909, was […]
January 17, 2023
Today in MSFS, I’m at the Aerodrome de Saint-Cyr-l’École in Versailles to tell the story of the famous French aviatrix Hélène Boucher and her airplane, the Caudron C.430 Rafale. Boucher is France’s version of Amelia Earhart – equally iconic and equally tragic in the French imagination. Charles Lindbergh’s solo crossing of the Atlantic, from New […]
January 6, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’ll be flying the Beechcraft Model 17 “Staggerwing”, widely regarded as one of the world’s most enviable private airplanes. Walter Beech was born in 1891 in Pulaski, Tennessee, and flew in the U.S. Army during World War I. After the war, he joined Swallow Airplane Company as a test pilot. […]
February 10, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’ll be flying the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny”, the first mass-produced aircraft in America and a favorite of the old-time “barnstormers”. And to help frame the story, I’m at a small dirt airstrip outside of Americus, Georgia in May 1923, where a 21-year-old Charles Lindbergh is buying his first plane – […]
January 3, 2023
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’ll be flying the Grumman F6F Hellcat, the most successful carrier-based Allied fighter of World War II. And to tell that story, I’m aboard the USS Essex (CV-9) just off the eastern coast of the island of Luzon in the Philippines, on the morning of October 24, 1944. Just a […]
December 22, 2022
In my book, I mentioned one particular YouTube video posted by Charlie Gasmire of Airplane Academy, which helped me gain more control over the last few seconds of landing. His tip is to treat landing as a flight maneuver, in which you “feel for the ground” with the main wheels. I found it useful and […]
December 22, 2022
In my book, I mention watching an AOPA Air Safety Institute case study that drilled into me the importance of not raising your flaps all at once during a go-around. Here is that video:
December 22, 2022
In Chapter 27 of my book, I mention that the day after my check ride, another small airplane violated the Presidential TRF (Temporary Flight Restriction) that had so up-ended my own flight planning, and was intercepted by F-16 fighters. Here, for your edification, is the ATC audio of that incident: