• Bill Conti – Gonna’ Fly Now (Theme from “Rocky”)
• Foo Fighters – Learn to Fly
• Frank Sinatra – Come Fly With Me
• Frank Sinatra – Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)
• Lenny Kravitz – Fly Away
• Pink Floyd – Learning to Fly
• R. Kelly – I Believe I Can Fly
• REO Speedwagon – Time for Me to Fly
• Rush – Fly By Night
• Slightly Stoopid – Leaving On a Jet Plane
• Steve Miller Band – Fly Like an Eagle
• Sugar Ray – Fly
• The Offspring – Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Learning to Fly

Many of us general aviation pilots have probably checked out the website LiveATC.net, where you can listen to live air traffic control (ATC) radio frequencies from around the country.  It’s a free service that is great background noise if you are bored at home or around the office.  It’s also great to listen to radio communications for training purposes, especially for us pilots that don’t fly out of a towered airport (like me).

LiveATC.net recently released an iPhone version of their service.  It’s a great little app that essentially performs the same function as the website.  It’s $2.99, which certainly isn’t the cheapest app out there, but it does work like a charm and compared to most aviation apps out there, three bucks isn’t that much for a decent training aid.  Furthermore, it’s nice to have this audio at the palm of my hand, or more fittingly, able to be docked in my new iPhone clock-radio in my bedroom.  Again, it makes for nice background audio as I’m preparing for bed or getting up in the morning.

In terms of actually reviewing the app, it performs as advertised.  You can select your favorite airports/towers for quick access.  The buffering is just as quick as on the regular website, both through Wi-Fi and even 3G.  I’ve even listened to it in my car on the road with great success, although streaming audio through 3G does chew up iPhone battery life fairly quickly.  The newest version even supports background listening, so you could listen to it while working in other apps on the iPhone.  I’d recommend this app as I do thoroughly enjoy it (and I was not compensated for this review).

Check out the Live ATC Air Radio app on the iTunes Store here!

This flight I logged 1.1 hours of PIC flight time.

The weather was indeed clear and crisp and the plane performed great.  The colder/thicker air certainly helps the propeller cut into it more!  I did a couple laps around the pattern at Westosha, then down to Campbell Airport (C81) in Grayslake for a change of scenery.  Along the way, I flew by our house and my wife came out and waved…it was pretty cool, the first time she saw me actually IN flight from the ground.  I was happily surprised when my landings were nice and smooth, even with the moderate cross-wind that day.

After 4 greaser landings between the 2 airports, I jolted back home and spent the rest of V-Day with my awesome wife.  This flight I logged 0.8 hours of flight time.  Let’s hope 2010 brings a LOT more time in the air!

Apparently there was an Alaskan bush pilot flying up in Alaska on a fishing trip and mistakenly left some bait/food in his plane.  Naturally, a bear smelled it and tore his plane up majorly.  Upon returning to his severely damaged plane, this pilot radioed a friend who airdropped some supplies including duct tape.  Using these supplies, the pilot was able to repair his plane and fly home.  Some awesome usage of duct tape, I must admit!  I was hoping to read the pilot had the duct tape on him, but alas he didn’t.  So, I don’t know if my one roll in my bag will be enough to ever repair a bear-damaged plane, but it would certainly be useful in the wild nonetheless.  You can read the whole story on CNET.

Moral of the story: never leave food out for bears, and always BE PREPARED!

The bear-damaged plane.

The duct tape-fixed plane.

AeroWeather
Released Dec 02, 2009
Seller:  Pascal Dreer
(C) 2008 Pascal Dreer
Price (as of 12/17/2009):  FREE!
Rated 3.5 as of 12/17/2009 on iTunes Store

In my opinion, the AeroWeather free app is a powerful and must-have application for all pilots.  It’s simplicity is what makes it so great.  You just set your favorite airports and it pulls the current weather conditions (METARs) and forecasts (TAFs).  You can choose airport weather stations from the built-in database by either name or ICAO code.  The great thing for us pilots who don’t read METARs and TAFs every day is that the data can be shown in its original format or fully decoded into plain English.  I find this particularly useful in that it converts the Zulu time found in TAF’s into local time (a huge brain-power saver).  AeroWeather also puts a nice green/yellow/red icon next to each weather station to indicate whether the weather is at VFR/IFR minimums, another simple way to know if your flight is actually going to happen.

Sorry my review isn’t much longer, but that about covers everything this great little app does.  I would highly recommend this for ALL pilots, but especially general aviation pilots.  Check out AeroWeather on the iTunes Store here!

Scott, Angie, and I started from Westosha (5K6) and flew southbound to DuPage (DPA) airport.  Mark met us there since he only lives about 5 miles away from DPA.  Timing worked out well as I was able to text him right before we departed.  We hung out and chatted at DuPage for a few minutes, then jumped back in plane to head westward.  We did a quick landing and takeoff at DeKalb Regional (DKB) then a traveled a bit further west to just putz around in the sky.  We had great views of Northern Illinois University and, upon request, performed a brief “zero-g” moment to let them feel what a very steep dive feels like.  After that, we headed back to DuPage to let Mark get back to his family and then the remaining three of us flew back home to Westosha.

All three of my friends got to ride in the front and all three seemed to really enjoy it.  It was definitely a blast for me to share my hobby and passion for flying with all of them.  We are already talking about other times we can get together and go somewhere with a more set destination in mind.  All-in-all, it was an awesome day and I can’t wait to fly again with them!  You can see pictures from the day on my friend Scott’s Picasa Page here.  It was also my first time to DeKalb airport, another airport down on my list!

This flight I logged 2.1 hours of flight time and 4 landings.

Most general aviation pilots know how expensive true aviation-grade portable GPS systems can be.  Garmin and Lowerance systems cost upwards of $2,000 for a decent one, even the seemingly awesome Bendix-King AV8OR costs around $700+.  In my mind, those are ridiculous prices for the amount of functionality those devices provide.  After experimenting with my Mio Personal Navigation Device for aviation use with some success, I was hopeful to find something just as useful on my iPhone.  I’m very happy and excited to report about the SkyCharts app…truly a great little gem on the iPhone!

Granted, it’s no fully integrated electronic flight bag (EFB), but it does exactly what it claims to do…  it puts your GPS position directly on top of the paper sectionals/charts you’ve grown to know and love.  The first versions of the app did ONLY that, but the latest version added some flight planning capabilities as well.

One VERY important feature of this app is that you can cache the various charts to use while you don’t have a data/cellular signal.  In other words, you can use this while flying (even though you aren’t supposed to – like any app).  Furthermore, it now has a database of all U.S. airports, nav points, and fixes – all of which can be selected and routed direct-to.  For each airport, it also will cache and display approach plates and airport diagrams.  Overall, very useful stuff!  The flight-planning is currently only 1 point direct-to lines, but future versions may include multiple waypoints.  The development of this app has been moving quickly, so I wouldn’t be surprised if those features are included in the near future.

Overall, for $10 ($9.99 technically), it’s WELL worth the cost!  I’ve used this MANY times in the air already, and think it’s a superb app.  I HIGHLY recommend it!  Check it out on iTunes here!

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I rent planes from the flying club I’m a member of.  All of the club’s planes are older than 2001, some as old as 1982!

As such, the checklists and POH’s are rather tattered and delicate.  One of the first apps I thought would work great for my new iPhone was an aviation checklist application.  After trying out all of the free checklist apps, I was severely disappointed.  Most were crippled in that they only showed a sample of what it could do, or it wasn’t easy to edit/add items to check, and they all started out blank or for planes I would never fly in.

I decided to “splurge” on the $1.99 AirCheck Aviation Checklist app from Felix Khazin and was delightfully surprised.  The main feature that I thought was great was that you could edit and download other checklists on the web, not solely on your iPhone.  I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to type out 100 items directly on the iPhone.  From the site, you can also download the checklists that other people have created, and guess what… all the plane types that my club owns were already input…so, set up was a cinch!  The app itself is pretty simple and straightforward.  You can tap on the screen or shake the iPhone to “check off” an item.  That’s a great feature to not have to use both hands – so ultimately it’s as simple as using the POH checklist.  It also has both night and day display modes, to not kill your night-vision if it’s dark out.  The text is perfectly sized and again, you can make the checklist as detailed or simple as you’d like.  I’ve kept all my checklists 100% matched to the checklists in the planes I fly.  Overall, this app is the best aviation checklist I’ve come across, and for $1.99 you can’t beat it!

Well, I finally splurged and made the leap to an iPhone….and boy, do I LOVE it!  I’m a techie, and I could write 50 blog posts just about the iPhone in general, but I’ll try to make the next few posts focused on the general aviation uses and aspects of the iPhone.  Firstly, I would highly recommend checking out a fellow aviation blogger who started a website dedicated to listing out all the aviation-related iPhone apps – www.aviatorapps.com.  If you go there, you’ll notice there are a TON of free apps related to aviation.  Some weight & balance calculators, E6B’s, electronic checklists, POH’s, airport finder, and even some navigation / sectional apps!  Here’s what I’m using so far, and direct links to download them in iTunes Application store:

• AeroWeather (free)
• AOPA Airports (free)
• PlaneSpot (free)
• SkyCharts ($9.99 and worth every penny)
• AirCheck ($2.00)

I’ll do a review on each of these apps in the near future.  As you can see, 3 of the 5 that I use a lot are 100% free – and those are just the apps I’ve KEPT after testing out probably 40 or so other free aviation apps.   If anyone is on the fence about getting an iPhone, I will say that just the potential aviation uses can help justify the buy (in additonal to the TON of other great uses).  Of course, with my Mio C320 portable GPS device, I’ve got double GPS backup sources and I feel pretty confident going on longer and longer trips now!  Hopefully I’ll be up in the sky again soon!