Airspeed

Tony Condon is as an ATP and corporate pilot who also serves as the president of the Kansas Soaring Association, headquartered at Sunflower Gliderport. We sat down and talked about long-distance cross-country soaring.

John Harte is glider CFI and chief instructor at Sanhill Soaring Club in Gregory, Michigan, just a few miles down the road from Hell. (Hell, Michigan, that is.) He's also a tow pilot, aerobatic pilot, airshow performer, and FAST formation lead. Here's an hour and a half in conversation with John.

Kent and I are sequestered in our respective locations at SARS-CoV-2 sweeps the nation, so we thought we'd record a podcast episode.

We made an audiobook! Steve narrated the audiobook version of Thomas A. Bass's The Eudaemonic Pie. The book tells the story of a band of physicists and computer wizards in the late 1970s and early 1980s who set out to beat roulette in Las Vegas with computers in their shoes. A story of science, art, and the birth of the hacker culture. The episode contains a brief account of the making of the audiobook and the entire prologue of the audiobook itself.

The second in a two-part series chronicling the long road to becoming a CFI. In this episode, our hero suffers more indignation at the hands of a check airman who calls off Christmas, after which he begins the long slog down the self-launch mountain, through the valley, and back up the adjacent peak of aerotow.

Here's Part 1 of the epic quest for the CFI certificate. It covers everything from deciding to go for the certificate up to the failed attempt to transition to a different motorglider at a faraway school. Part 2 is already recorded and will be up soon. In the meantime, enjoy the comedy and the tragedy that is pursuing a glider CFI ride in a world not equipped to make that ride happen.

Jack Hodgson takes the bully mic for a pre-show discussion of what it takes to put on a hometown airshow in some of the most complicated airspace in North America.

An eighth-grade language arts assignment from FOD becomes an Airspeed episode. A father's expectations for his son at 14.

David Allen (on the bully mic) and Dean Greenblatt (BIRD from the show) join Steve to debrief the first-ever airshow over the Detroit River.

This is the third installment of the series that covers - in near-realtime - the events leading up to the GM Detroit River Days Airshow on the Detroit River 20-21 June 2015. As before, David Allen of Other People's Airplanes has taken the mic and is running the show in order to keep things moving.

David Allen once again takes the host mic to talk with Steve about the upcoming River Days Airshow in Detroit 20-21 June 2015.

First in a series that follows the planning and execution of our very own airshow.

US Soaring Team member Tony Condon talks about the upcoming 13.5 Meter World Championships in Lithuania. 

An interview with OpenAirplane co-founder Rod Rakic, as well as an account of my own OpenAirplane Universal Pilot Checkout at Crosswinds Aviation at Livingston County Airport (KOZW) in Howell, Michigan.

An update of the Airspeed's rules of engagement and FAQ.  Want to know more about what goes on behind the scenedat Airspeed?  Here are the answetrs to the questions that people most often ask.

A conversation with Kim Crow, who voiced Bitching Betty in the F-15 and many other platforms in the early days of audible annunciations in fighter aircraft.

We talk to Bill Anderson and Dale Tutt about the new Textron AirLand Scorpion Jet, which made its first flight just last week.

The remarks by US Rep Sam Graves regarding sequestration and its effects on the airshow industry.

Here it is!  The third and final installment of the Inside Airshows series.  After doing stints on a pyro crew and as a team narrator, things went to a completely new level as I had the opportunity to train up, join a team, and fly as an actual airshow performer. It's a story of what it's like on the performer ramp, in the brief, and up in the box in front of the crowd.  But, more than that, it's a story of three questions and what you owe to your 10-year-old self.  

In which I pick up a microphone and purport to entertain an airshow crowd (and confirm my suspicion that it's a lot harder than it looks).

The first of a three-part series that takes you behind the scenes at airshows.  In this episode, Airspeed takes you out to show center with the pyro crew at the 2012 TICO Valiant Air Command Warbird Airshow with Mark Sorenson and James Hammons of Tiger Airshows and The Ringmasters.

The American Flight museum's AC-57 Spooky gunship.

Karl Stoltzfus of Dynamic Aviation flew this beautiful DC-3/C-47 to Topeka to show her off to this crowd.  His grandson, Gabriel (7) joined him to talk about the aircraft and its renovation.

Greg Smith and his Beech 18.

Bill Whiteman's T-28 Trojen - a RapidCast from the Gathering of Warbirds and Legends in Topeka.

Talking abut a liaison aircraft among the heavy metal on the ramp at Topeka.

Commemorative paratrooper MSgt (Ret) Robert Yarberry.

The briefing from the practice day of the Gathering of Warbirds and Legends.

The Airspeed audience first met ENS Evan Levesque (pronounced “leh-VECK”) as a MDN 1/C at the US Naval Academy in 2010.  We then checked in with him during his primary flight training in the T-6B in February of 2012.  Since then, ENS Levesque has gone on to tailhook training, flying the T-45 Goshawk.  This episode features more than an hour of conversation with ENS Levesque about what it's like to fly jets and to prepare to land an aircraft on a floating runway.

Meet B-52 and B-2 driver USAF Lt Col (Ret) Chris "Cliff" DeVaughn!  We talked about the aircraft, its flight characteristics, and its mission.  And, more importantly, we talked about what it's like to fly long-duration missions in one of the most important strategic weapons systems in the US inventory.  All the way from the selection process through training and into combat.  This is every bit as much about the men as the machines.

The second of two episodes covering my glider rating.  Victory, defeat, ground effect, and a sock puppet.  It's all here!

Pilot, producer, and Uncontrolled Airspace co-host Jack Hodgson joins us to talk about the pilot population, flight training, the future of the aviation podsphere, and more in this nearly-two-hour conversation.  Think you know Jack?  Listen in!

Taking to the streets (and tollways) of Orlando, Florida in a T-6 with eight other aircraft for the NBAA Convention 2012.

Despite the aggressive schedule around here (glider training, trying to find a new acro ride, doing really cool legal work for the best clients on the planet, etc.), I managed to get some time this weekend to do some editing on the movie.  The result is this sneak peek, "With friends like these . . ." The campers at both of the Acro Camp shoots were very collaborative and supportive of each other.  But that doesn't mean that there wasn't at least a little laughter with (okay, at) each other when stuff went wrong.  And stuff is bound to go wrong when you're learning to fly an aircraft whose center of gravity is behind the mains. In the course of logging all of the footage, I've noted when both IPs were in aircraft and noted opportunities to synchronize the conversation across both cockpits.  Usually based on ATC calls or radio communication between the aircraft.  This was one such pair of sequences.  I loved the big bounce on Jim's wheel landing and I loved the reaction that it got from Barry and Lynda.  I lined them up this evening and voila!  Tailwheel magic!  

Here's an account of my glider training this year through my first glider solo on Friday.  Show notes at www.airspeedonline.com.

Behind the scenes at Airspeed.  Kinda.

50 minutes of pure awesome with one of North America's busiest airshow announcers, Rob Reider.

ENS Evan Levesque (pronounced “leh-VECK”) is a primary flight student at NAS Whiting Field near Milton, Florida.  He’s flying the mighty T-6B in the aerobatic phase of training, having recently completed the contact phase and flown his first solo.  He has instrument work and a formation phase yet to go. More information at www.navy.com.

The second installment of the Airspeed LPA.

A diary of my first aerobatic competition.  Compiled from blog posts I wrote before, during, and after the competition. Music is Game Day by Jon Schmidt.  www.johnschmidt.com.  www.musicalley.com.  

An overview of the Airshows 101 course at the 2011 ICAS convention.

On 21 August 2017, the umbral shadow of the moon will sweep across the continental United States from Oregon to South Carolina.  Here are some thoughts about how (and why) to fly through that shadow.

Here's the promo that I shot for The Hoppers, an L-39 team based in the midwestern US.

Here's a big file that contains the full account of my experiences at CAP NESA MAS 2010.  This file contains all of the audio from the prior three episodes in one tasty jumbo audio burrito. I hope that this doesn't bother anyone who has already downloaded the three individual installments.  I'm thinking about removing those three episodes from the feed and having just this big one for future download. Want more information about CAP?  Head to www.gocivilaitpatrol.com.  Want a PDF version of this account with images from the school?  It's at http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/Airspeed_-_Touching_the_True_Source_-_CAP_NESA_MAS_2010_-_v2011-10-10.pdf.

This is the third of a three-episode series covering my experience at Civil Air Patrol’s National Emergency Services Academy Mission Aircrew School (NESA-MAS) in Indiana in the summer of 2010.

This is the second of a three-episode series covering my experience at Civil Air Patrol’s National Emergency Services Academy Mission Aircrew School (NESA-MAS) in Indiana in the summer of 2010. I intend to make available the entire 30,000-word piece in a single file and PDF document with photos at about the time at which I release the third episode. I might also put the long-form file into the podcast feed on its own.In the meantime, enjoy this in-depth look at the nation’s premier civilian fixed-wing search-and-rescue flight training school from the perspective of a zero-to-hero CAP Mission Pilot candidate.

In the wake of a difficult weekend (and, indeed, a difficult season) for the airshow community, I asked John Cudahy to sit down for a few minutes to talk about airshow safety.   John has been the president of the International Council of Air Shows, Inc. (“ICAS”) since 1997.  I’ve heard him speak at the annual convention in Las Vegas for the past two years and I’m returning to Las Vegas again this December. John is one of those people who has always been on my list of people to bring onto the show at some appropriate time.  I had thoughts of bringing him on as a part of the upcoming episode encapsulating my experience attending ICAS’s Airshows 101 class at the last convention.  But the events of the summer conspired to make it more important to bring John onto the show now to talk about the ICAS safety culture.

Part 1 of my 30,000-word epic describing my experiences at CAP's National Energency Services Academy Mission Aircrew School in 2010.

Will Hawkins joins Steve to commiserate about independent filmmaking.

Getting complacent in your flying?  Take a cue from a TV secret agent and try flying an approach with everything completely different and some of it detinitely not TSO'ed.