The Student Pilot Cast

Hello, everyone.  Sorry for the long delay.  I have not stopped flying...but I appreciate those of you who have asked or inquired.  In fact, if anything, I have intensified my training.  I'll try to do a quick audio update as well so those of you who don't get on the website will get an update as well...but this will have to do for now.

So...the other news is that I'm at Oshkosh.  I flew in with Kent from the PilotCast, which was very interesting.  This is my first trip to the mecca of general aviation, and I'm hoping to bring some good information to all of you who haven't made it this year.  I've got some really good updates coming for my training, too, but I'm putting those on hold for Air Venture, and will resume those next week.

You can follow me at Oshkosh on twitter (www.twitter.com/billwil) where I am attempting to update what I'm seeing and doing.  I've been seeing some great stuff, and I'll get you all some more information soon.  Stay tuned for more updates.

Shooting 'em out rapid-fire, now, folks.  Here's another episode of the Student Pilot Cast, number 15, about a flight in which we focused on VORs and Simulated Instrument Conditions (The Hood).  I had passed my Phase II Check, and I was starting on Phase III.  I hope you enjoy.

Episode 14 is here!  Today we'll follow a dual lesson that I had to prep for the Stage II Stage Check.  Now that I had been introduced to shorts and softs, and had some time to practice, it was time to finish stage II.  Before I could do this stage check, though, I had to prep with my instructor.  That's what this lesson and episode is about.  We practiced steep turns, minimum controllable airspeed, power on and power off stalls, emergency procedures, and a couple more short and soft landings.

Thanks for listening.  I hope you enjoy episode 14.

It's time for another video episode, episode 3, Reference This.  In this episode, I take a solo practice flight to the practice area to go over Ground Reference Maneuvers. 

I'm including the smaller version again in this feed (320x240) because of the sheer size of the 640x480 versions (400 MB).  I've heard from a couple of you commenting that you would rather have the larger version...and I still may consider that, but these files just seem too large for a simple podcast.  The embedded video from Vimeo in this post is pretty high quality, so if you desire a more detailed version, maybe this will suffice.  For those of us who watch video podcasts on a handheld device, the smaller version will suffice.  Again...if I hear from more of you wanting the larger versions of these, I will consider changing this, or adding a High Quality feed for the larger videos.

Thanks for taking the time to watch.  As usual, I'd love to know what you think, so shoot off an email or use the contact page on the website.

Here is the embedded version of the video.

Use the Feed Link 

This is an episode about a solo flight I took to practice ground reference maneuvers.  I also take the opportunity to share portions of an email I received from David Allen, a future pilot who's email summarized in an eloquent way what several people have said to me since I started this.  I asked David for permission to share his email, and he graciously allowed me to.  Thanks, David, for the kind words, the motivation to keep producing more episodes, and allowing me to share it.  Like I say in the episode itself, contact and notes from people like David are the only compensation that podcasters like me get for the hours put into production and planning.  Letters from David and others like him make it well worth it.

So, if you would like to contact me, feel free to do so at the email address mentioned in the episode, or simply click on the contact link on this website and let me know what you think.  Up next I'll be finishing up Stage II, and it will be on to the cross country work in stage III.  I hope you hang with me...there's a lot more to come.