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Greece Vacation, Part 3 – Nafplio – Seaport Town in Peloponnese
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Greece Vacation, Part 3 – Nafplio – Seaport Town in Peloponnese
Cities, Countries, Hotels, Travel

Greece Vacation, Part 3 – Nafplio – Seaport Town in Peloponnese

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T14:08:00+08:00February 10th, 2018|Cities, Countries, Hotels, Travel|

How to Spend a Day in Nafplio, Peloponnese In my Destination Greece: Part 1 and Part 2 I talked about our road trip in Greece I did with my wife in November of 2017. Our choices of destinations were mostly based on my research of best things to do in Greece among other reasons. The trip started from Athens with a short stop in Ancient Corinth, then we continued driving on to Nafplio (also could be written as Nafplion). We decided to visit Nafplio because I found in many travel guides it was one of the top places to visit while in Greece. It was also conveniently located for us on our trip through the Peloponnese peninsula. Nafplio has a long, interesting history, has beautiful scenery, and it used to be the capital of Greece long time ago. Because of my short vacation time and many other places we [...]

Flight Experience 5.1 – Spinning a Diamond DA20 in China – Video Blog
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Flight Experience 5.1 – Spinning a Diamond DA20 in China – Video Blog
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training

Flight Experience 5.1 – Spinning a Diamond DA20 in China – Video Blog

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T14:31:34+08:00January 28th, 2018|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training|

Spinning a Diamond DA20 Aircraft Short video of spin flight training in a Diamond DA20 Aircraft in Chaoyang, China. For more information about spin training check out my related post: Aircraft Experience 5.0 - Spinning Diamonds. If the video doesn’t work in China you can see it in YouKu at Spinning a Diamond DA20.

Flight Experience 5.0 – Spinning Diamonds
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Flight Experience 5.0 – Spinning Diamonds
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training

Flight Experience 5.0 – Spinning Diamonds

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-03-02T17:10:44+08:00January 27th, 2018|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training|

Flight Experience 5 - Diamond DA20 I first flew the Austrian designed, Canadian built, two-seat Diamond DA20 aircraft in Florida back in 2001. The DA20-A1 models back then were also called Diamond "Katana's". That time I used it for teaching private pilot students and I flew the plane for about 100 hours. Next time I had an opportunity fly the aircraft was ten years later in 2011. At the time I was living in Chaoyang, Liaoning Province, China. The DA20's we had in China where slightly improved DA20-C1 models that had dropped the Katana designation. For now on I will just refer the aircraft as Diamond DA20's. Chaoyang, Liaoning Province. About 500 km northeast of Beijing, and about the same distance to North Korea. Working as a CFI I was working as the Chief Flight Instructor in a Chinese government owned flight [...]

Greece Vacation, Part 2 – Ancient Corinth
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Greece Vacation, Part 2 – Ancient Corinth
Cities, Countries, Travel

Greece Vacation, Part 2 – Ancient Corinth

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-12T21:51:34+08:00January 22nd, 2018|Cities, Countries, Travel|

In my Destination Greece Part 1 post I talked about our visit in Athens. I was in Greece on a vacation with my wife, and first we spent three nights in Athens. From there we rented a car and went for a road trip. The car rental was effortless. There was a Sixt car rental office at the Hilton Athens hotel, which made the drop off at the end of the rental period convenient because that's the hotel where we spent our last night in Greece. I booked a small Toyota car but I got a free upgrade to a BMW X1. Such a smooth ride! This was only my second time renting from Sixt but I have a good status with the company as I explained in my post Pilot's Guide to Hotel Benefits. With the wheels under us we were ready for a road trip! [...]

Flight Experience 4.1 – Formation Flying 101 – Video blog
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Flight Experience 4.1 – Formation Flying 101 – Video blog
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training

Flight Experience 4.1 – Formation Flying 101 – Video blog

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T14:32:57+08:00January 21st, 2018|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training|

Short video of our formation flying experiment I did with another pilot in a Cessna 172. Events of the day are described in my Aircraft Experience 4 - First Flight to Kill Devil Hills post. If the video doesn't work in China you can see it in YouKu at Formation Flying in Cessna 172

Flight Experience 4 – First Flight to Kill Devil Hills
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Flight Experience 4 – First Flight to Kill Devil Hills
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training

Flight Experience 4 – First Flight to Kill Devil Hills

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T14:33:42+08:00January 19th, 2018|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training|

It was the closest I have been to another aircraft while flying one. ∼Vesa Aircraft Experience 4 - Cessna 172 I did my flight training in a flight school called North American Institute of Aviation (also called NAIA). The school was located in small town called Conway in South Carolina, United States. I spent about a year there starting with private pilot training, then instrument rating training, followed by commercial pilot, multi-engine, and flight instructor license training. Private pilot training was done in a two seat Cessna 152. Once I received my private pilot license I moved on to a slightly bigger Cessna 172. It had a more powerful engine and could carry four people instead of two. Unlike most of the C152's that we had, the C172's were approved for instrument flying; meaning we could find our way to different airports just by using different navigational instruments instead of [...]

Greece Vacation, Part 1 – Top Ten Places to Visit in Athens
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Greece Vacation, Part 1 – Top Ten Places to Visit in Athens
Cities, Countries, Travel

Greece Vacation, Part 1 – Top Ten Places to Visit in Athens

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T14:19:03+08:00January 15th, 2018|Cities, Countries, Travel|

I travel a lot for my work but the best trips still are the vacation trips that I have with my wife. That is when we are free to do what we want without worrying about possible schedule change. Why Greece? Our recent leisure trip was in Greece . We chose to visit Greece because it is essentially the birth place of western civilization with thousands of years of history. Although I had visited Athens once before as a kid I wanted to visit there again at an older age now that I can better appreciate different cultures. Also Greece was a convenient location to visit from Dubai where I happened to be training just before my vacation. My last day of training was October 29th and we flew to Athens on 30th. I made a travel plan before our trip and found out this was really not the [...]

Flight Experience 3.1 – The Sound of Liberty
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Flight Experience 3.1 – The Sound of Liberty
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training

Flight Experience 3.1 – The Sound of Liberty

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T19:22:59+08:00January 15th, 2018|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training|

Flight Experience 3.1 - The Sound of Liberty This is a video of a takeoff, taxy, and landing in a Liberty XL2 Aircraft. The video is an addition to my blog post "Flight Experience 3". Please check out my post to find out why it is the sound I'll never forget! Credits for the music goes to my friend Eeem [Eim] in Helsinki. Check out his music here. For more similar posts you might want check out my Flight Experience Page! Or for all aviation posts you should go to my Aviation Page. If you are just looking to see something fun you will like this Airplane Spinning Video. For all my videos you should check out my YouTube Channel, and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel!

Flight Experience 3 – The Day I Almost Died!
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Flight Experience 3 – The Day I Almost Died!
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training

Flight Experience 3 – The Day I Almost Died!

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T19:23:55+08:00January 14th, 2018|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training|

I didn’t crash that day but it was close. ∼Vesa Flight Experience: Liberty XL2 It was a beautiful day in Ormond Beach, Florida, and a regular day in a life of a flight instructor. I showed up at the school early in the morning. The sun was just about to rise and the air was moist with dew. I parked my car at the parking lot outside the airport fence, got out and used my key code to enter the airside of the airport. It was a short walk to the flight school entrance. It was dark inside; I was the first one arriving to work as was usual those days. My goal was to fly as much as possible so I volunteered to do all the available flights, even the early ones. I was about to leave USA for China few weeks later, so my future was unknown and I [...]

Corporate Pilot’s Guide to Hotel Benefits
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Corporate Pilot’s Guide to Hotel Benefits
Hotels, Travel

Corporate Pilot’s Guide to Hotel Benefits

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2019-04-04T14:44:50+08:00January 10th, 2018|Hotels, Travel|

Hotels, hotels, hotels 2109 update - Marriot, SPG, and The Ritz-Carlton Hotels have now combined their loyalty program into one combined program, that is called "Marriott Bonvoy". The loyalty benefits are still almost the same as before. However, there are now six membership levels: Standard Member, Silver Elite, Gold Elite, Platinum Elite, Titanium Elite, and Ambassador Elite. Details of the program benefits and how to reach each level can be found here. Good think for the customers is that there are now more than 6700 hotels and resorts using the same loyalty program - many hotels to choose from! Below is the old blog post that you may still find interesting to read. How to Maximize your Hotel Benefits That's the topic of the day. It is not the most exciting subject but I feel it is necessary for me to talk about hotels before I start posting more travel related articles. Hotels [...]