Aircraft – FunkyPilot

Flight Experience 7 – Look at ’em Puppies! – Ready for a Seaplane Flight?!?
Gallery
Flight Experience 7 – Look at ’em Puppies! – Ready for a Seaplane Flight?!?
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training

Flight Experience 7 – Look at ’em Puppies! – Ready for a Seaplane Flight?!?

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-19T20:18:38+08:00February 15th, 2018|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience, Flight Training|

Flight Experience 7 - Maule M7-235B Super Rocket Seaplane Few weeks before I moved to China in March of 2007 I was still in Florida. I was working as a flight instructor but I also wanted to get one more pilot rating under my belt before leaving the country. Florida is full of flight schools and the weather is normally good for flying all year around. Not only land based aircraft pilots are trained in Florida but there are also several seaplane flight schools. The thought of flying a small seaplane somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness or in the tropics of South America had always exited me. Although the prospects of getting a seaplane job with just the license sounded slim I decided to get the license anyway. Maule M7-235B Super Rocket Amphibian Florida Seaplanes Flight School I was living in [...]

Flight Experience 5.1 – Spinning a Diamond DA20 in China – Video Blog
Gallery
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
Gallery
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 [...]

Flight Experience 4.1 – Formation Flying 101 – Video blog
Gallery
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
Gallery
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 [...]

Flight Experience 3.1 – The Sound of Liberty
Gallery
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!
Gallery
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 [...]

Flight Experience 2 – The Scare over Australia
Gallery
Flight Experience 2 – The Scare over Australia
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience

Flight Experience 2 – The Scare over Australia

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-26T21:02:37+08:00January 7th, 2018|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Experience|

Flight Experience 2 – Challenger 605 The Scare over Australia This is a post about a scary situation I once had flying the Challenger 605 over Australia. We were on a two week trip around Southeast Asia and Australia. The aircraft was a Challenger 605 with two pilots, one flight attendant, and eight passengers. The trip started from Ningbo, China to Bali, Indonesia, with a fuel stop in Sanya. Nothing really exciting happened on the first day. Just the usual stuff of following our preselected airways and navigating around occasional thunderstorms. We got up to 40,000 feet which is higher than most airliners usually fly at. At this altitude we were able to overfly most of the bad weather, but later in the afternoon the storm buildups exceeded even that altitude. But that’s normal when you cross from South China Sea to Java Sea and finally to Bali Sea. [...]

Flight Experience 1 – The Day that Shocked the World
Gallery
Flight Experience 1 – The Day that Shocked the World
Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Training

Flight Experience 1 – The Day that Shocked the World

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2020-02-15T14:08:41+08:00December 31st, 2017|Aircraft, Aviation, Flight Training|

Flight Experience 1 - Cessna 152 I was planning to write a post introducing my first training aircraft, the Cessna 152. But the internet is full of detailed technical information about the aircraft, so writing about the aircraft would add little value to anyone. Instead of writing about the aircraft I decided to describe an experience I had flying this particular type of aircraft. I will provide few details and a brief description about the aircraft on my aircraft page, but if you are interested to learn more technical details about the aircraft then you should check out Wikipedia for example. Cessna 152 Day as a Flight Instructor About four months into my flight instructing days I was working in Kissimmee, Florida, just outside Orlando. It was my first job as a pilot and I wanted to fly as much as possible. During [...]