Flying over Washington
Pat Hund flying over Snohomish fields. Photo: Alex Souza.
After 4 or 5 flights in my new state, I am starting to feel home. The camaraderie I have found here is awesome. Jim, Pat and Doug have been great friends. Together we are still cruising the skies in every opportunity we have.
If friendship is warm, I cannot say the same about the weather. Coming from Florida, flying temperatures below 60F has been a challenge. My air time record is less than a hour, with average of 45min. I have bought some heated gloves but now I need to buy and install a rectifier in my engine. I will keep you posted about it.
Regarding the updates in PPG Places.com, my new job has been so intense that I could not seat and start to code several ideas I have for this site. To be honest, I have asked my self if this is a worthy effort or not. I know we have 40 places and almost 75 pilots registered but, what about the several hundreds that we have only in the United States? Is this site a good thing for the community? I keep asking it to myself.
If you are reading this blog, let me know you thoughts.
Thanks a lot,
Alex
Hi Alex,
I think it’s a great idea and was looking forward to using this site to plan cross country road trips where I could fly along the way. Unfortunently most pilots are not willing to share their LZ with the world and perhaps they are right. There are certainly guys I wouldn’t want flying at my favorite places without someone to keep em cool.
Perhaps this site will grow and include the sites “any jerk and fly without causing trouble”
Good Luck JoeO
Alex,
I think it is a great idea. However, Jeff Goins comments regarding the reluctance of other pilots to openly share information about flying sites is a serious matter and very complicated. We, the PPG community should openly discuss why this is so as a first order of events. I started hang gliding in the early ’70s and I know very well the work; political,physical, financial, and emotional, that goes into maintaining a flying site. So it is a serious issue. That dosen’t mean we can’t move forward but I warn you that it may be a discouraging endeavor. I have a site 1 mile from my house. I have been using this site since 1973. It is beautiful and has many great features. The property belongs to the State of North Carolina. I have done occasional instruction there for many years and have soloed many students there. There has never been any problem until about a year ago when the current political and economic situation made certain authorities nervous asd I was called to question. It turned out that the issue was not liability but fear of negative publicity that had them worried. I worked for months on an appeal to reason and it worked so far although no “official policy” was decided upon for now. I no longer teach anything but kiting there and only after business hours and on weekends. I never solo a new student ther any more. I keep a very low profile myself. And I try very hard to obey the FAR’s part 103 so as not to draw attention from the public or authorities. I actually fly within the city limits and nearby are a heliport, two airports, two maximum security prisons, two big box stores, a hospital, a huge mental hospital, the county jail, and many more govt. agencies. And I am not selfish or posessive about the site. I take guests there often and carefully instruct them on “the rules”. But I am not about to give out info to the PPG community openly and invite losing my site. The problem is that a lot of so called “pilots” in PPG don’t respect the FAR’s even in the spirit of the law let alone the letter of the law. Many act like dirt bikers that have no respect for property rights or the environment and do nothing to help the image of PPG in the eyes of the public. I have seen this myself especially among guys that had good flying skills but no social common sense. I am not saying it is rampant but it is there in a big way. So there lies the problem with openly sharing flying sites. It only takes one hot dog to “buzz” one of those prisons, downtown, or business to destroy years of hard work that has earned the respect of the local authorities. The local population still thinks I am “crazy” for flying “those things” but they don’t feel threatened or annoyed by my flying. As a matter of fact they enjoy watching me and most local citizens thik almost anything they see flying in tha area; any “ultralight” is me. To conclude, I think we should become true aviators that are knowledgeable in the broad sense of aviation. Much more like Jeff Goin and less like a bunch of Huns bent on sacking Rome using air power.
As you know it is very easy to make certain people mad who then complain and get a site shut down. And it is not just PPG but general aviation too. My club airport (NC 27) is constantly working to keep the neighbors happy as possible regarding our flying which is mostly GA aircraft.
So don’t give up. Keep at it and let’s work on ideas as a community to improve on the situation. We need it and PPG needs to be, and I am not joking, the leader in aviation growth in a rapidly changing world.
Best regards,
Ernest
Legion Air Inc
828-437-3704
Legion Air Inc
Joe and Ernest,
Thanks for the words of appreciation. Like you and Jeff, I agree we could have the most amazing community of pilots, and this is the idea behind the site. For the jerks not respecting the rules, I keep praying for their safe, as I do believe what we do here, we pay here.
Again, if you have any suggestions for improvement, let me know!
Alex