On the Horizon

I had the special opportunity to give a short talk this morning to a group of neat high school students at my alma mater, Weimar Academy. The topic: missionary aviation, and how God needs mission pilots. How to take the first step? Well...we are working on setting up a Mission Pilot Ground School class this fall! If we get a minimum number of students to sign up, I'll be teaching it with my recently acquired Advanced Ground Instructor certificate.

The potential is pretty exciting because ground school is just the first step. As soon as I return from my summer job, I will be diving into Flight Instructor training so that not only will I be able to teach these kids about flying, but I will be able to teach them how to fly! So that's the latest and greatest, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this all pans out.

Meanwhile I've got some studying to do to get ready for my own training!

Lesson 5 Load Factors and Props

It's pretty interesting how doing maneuvers in an airplane will increase the amount of weight the wings are effectively having to support. In fact, if you get too happy with your yanking and banking, it is very possible to overstress your airplane. Hmmm, I can already think of other applications for that type of a principle. Perhaps something to do with taking on too much load of anything and getting overstressed? Hope you enjoy this lesson, and yes there are actually more on my Youtube channel, which I will eventually be posting here, one by one. (Just a hint that if you get impatient, you can go and watch the others already).

Lesson 4 Ground Effect & Stability

Continuing to pump the lessons out. (I'm actually working on processing Lessons 8 and 9 on the computer as I post this). You wouldn't believe how long it takes to get a good take of a lesson - with all the goof-ups, getting tongue-tied halfway through, forgetting where I was going, going around in circles, and the worst: realizing I've been saying something that makes absolutely no sense. So the record button on my iPad screen gets a good workout (huh?) as I start and restart the filming. But in the end, I am quite certain that I've gotten a lot closer to mastery in teaching my subject than when I got started. And when things finally go (almost) as planned, I have the pleasure of letting you watch another edition of SkyBound: On the Ground. So here it is; enjoy!

Lesson 3 Aerodynamics - the Dark Side of Lift

Alright, here is the next video in my SkyBound: On the Ground series, and in it we discover that sometimes producing lift also produces other, less desirable things as well. So enjoy it the video (and sorry for the thumbnail that Youtube grabbed - makes me look like I'm explaining a toothache to the dentist).

Lesson 2

Here is the next installment in my in-progress online Groundschool!

Back With You!

I suppose the reason I haven't written much here since the big day back in October is because there hasn't been much happening in the way of flying since then. Actually, I haven't been Pilot in Command in 6 months now! But there's a reasonable reason... Between sinus surgery, traveling, and a host of other things, I have been slowly working on the ground preparation for eventual flight instructor training.

Since flight instructors need to know how to teach, I have begun practicing just that. The plan is to tape and upload a series of ground school lessons, taught by yours truly. The benefit is mainly for myself - figuring out how to present and explain and make things interesting. And most importantly, know the material. So here is the first one - hope you enjoy it. Feedback is very welcome as well.