I installed new Zulu 3 braided cables on my Lightspeed Zulu 1st generation today, as the original were frayed. €16 per cable on AliExpress (original!) Lightspeed no longer offers support for Zulu 1, but it’s still amongst the best GA headsets available. Didn’t want to spend €1200 for a new one.

Some of my students use Rayban glasses that have two camera’s. They captured our ‘oblique (45 degrees offset) final’ yesterday. Oblique final is relatively unique to Island & Mountain flying. When two steams of wind come together, there is a high potential for turbulence, windshear & updrafts.

It’s been 4 months since I started working as a Flight Instructor again, and I’m extremely happy that I decided to accept this job after much consideration. I genuinely love general aviation, and could see myself staying in it for years to come.

I successfully passed my ME-CRI AoC today, and I can now (or when my CAA gets to the printing my new license, which for some reason can take up to two months!) instruct on Multi Engine aircraft. Very happy about this upgrade.

RPM gauge decided to quit on me during flight. Luckily I know O-320’s quite well and could set RPM based on engine sound ± 70 RPM. (And I don’t really fly on RPM’s anyway).

Nazi remnants on Guernsey. The entire island is filled with well-preserved nazi buildings.

2nd leg of our trip to Morocco done, arrived at Guernsey. First time visit for me so amazing to see it all. Though I certainly wished the roads were big enough to fit two cars.

I’m flying a Socata TB9 from The Netherlands to Morocco early next month, & I’m still looking for a co-pilot for the trip. If you can read an AIP, understand a METAR & want to log 20-odd hours for €1000 (plus costs for your hotel & food) let me know. Very rare opportunity. Reposting appreciated!

Hair Ice, always very special to find, since most of the time there isn’t anything else that appears frozen in the area. It only appears on dead wood with a specific type of fungi which acts as a catalyst. Whats even more interesting is that the exact mechanism is not known to scientists.

The aircraft I’m flying needs *constant* right rudder and right bank to a degree I’ve never seen before. All manual trim tabs are already deflected. No idea what’s going on. Here you can see me releasing aileron and rudder pressure. AC immediately starts entering a left dive.

We have sold our aircraft (Socata TB9) and I’ll be flying it from the Netherlands to Morocco in februari. This is a basic route a decided based on AVGAS availability and reasonable landing fees. Does anyone have some suggestions for places of interest, nature reserves or special airports to visit?

#OTD in 1994: United Express Flight 6291, a Jetstream 41, crashes on Ohio (US), 5 of 8 aboard die. On approach to Columbus airport, aircraft stalled out of control, went down 1.2 mi from runway. Factors: crew actions/inexperience, airline and FAA oversight, pilot training.

#OTD in 1953: an Associated Air Transport C-46 [N1648M] crashes in Idaho (US), all 40 aboard die. Plane disappeared after routine radio check, wreck found 5 days later. Cause: inadvertent descent into area of turbulence and icing, resulting in inability to regain safe altitude.

I haven't flown as a flight instructor for a while, and have to get current. I'm happy the New Zealand CAA has made an absolutely superb illustrated flight instructor guide, available for free! Recommend for anyone who wants to get current, instructor or not. www.aviation.govt.nz/licensing-an...

Does anyone know of any Aerial Survey companies in Africa (not South Africa), Asia, South/Central America who are looking for operators & operations managers? Still haven’t received my contract, so may as well see what else is out there, but can’t find a lot.

I bought a second hand Macbook Air (15’, M3, 16GB ram) yesterday for €900. New price is €1600. I had assumed the device was used with marks, but it was brand new. The person selling it is going though a divorce and badly needed the money. Now I feel bad, the device is worth more than I paid.

This was the peak of web software — functional, non-bloated, evoking the feeling of raw power

Oh what, the BlueSky app doesn’t support the iPad interface? That’s such a weird omission.

I’m very excited about moving to the Canary Islands for my new job. Flying in the Netherlands is great, small airports everywhere, superb flight information service and I know it like the back of my hand, but the scenery is the most boring in the world. By far. Flat, square pastures, repeat.

EASA folks, have you ever had an issue with your issuing authority refusing to issue an EASA approved rating? For some reason in the Netherlands, our authority will *not* issue a mountain rating. They acknowledge its existence, and then simply refuse to issue it.

Does anyone know why the monitoring audio is so much clearer and brighter than the audio that gets recorded? GarageBand & Forcusrite 2i2 Asked on twitter too but get 0 engagement these days.

When the new instructor doesn’t want to get wet so he leaves the aircraft outside & assumes other people will drain it for him :-))) Happened 3 years ago. Gascolator was completely full. We had to drain around 70 times to remove the water. Would’ve 100% been an engine failure. Always preflight.

Bit of controversial one. A friend of my has Aphantasia. This condition is where you cannot picture anything in your mind. When he imagines something, he imagines a textual description, not an image. Through the use of Lion’s Mane & Psilocybin (psychoactive) mushrooms, he has been able to slowly

Last time in the Cessna 404 office as a systems operator. Ancient, quirky aircraft to fly with an autopilot that truly has mood changes every other 30 minutes.

We want Bluesky to be a great home for journalists, publishers, and creators. Unlike other platforms, we don't de-promote your links. Post all the links you want — Bluesky is a lobby to the open web.

I’m looking for long term rentals in Gran Canaria, Spain. Does anyone know of a website that *isn’t* idealista?

Our Socata TB9 is likely getting sold. Plus side is that I get to fly it to Marrakech, Morocco. It’ll be a nice ferry flight in the slowest SEP aircraft in existence.

All that remains. First 2 pictures were taken 3 weeks ago, of a Dark Honey Mushroom growing on sand (which was particularly interesting to me). Last two pictures was what remained today. 3 weeks of wild weather changes (from snow two days ago to 17C today). Interesting to see decay like this.

Favolosa!! This Piaggio P180 Avanti is painted in Ferrari red! From my library, at the 2023 Paris Air Show.

Twitter’s algorithm is so utterly broken. For some reason no matter how many times I choose ‘show me less of this’ it just KEEPS pushing the same 7 accounts onto my timeline.

Isn’t it wonderful how you are a (competent) Flight Instructor, fly MEP aircraft weekly, but still somehow get slightly nervous when it’s time to renew your SEP? No clue why

@techconnectify.bsky.social Are you doing any Christmas light video this year? It’s become this weird tradition that starts the Christmas season feeling for me for whatever weird reason.

We wanted to ho visit the Scottish Highlands when the weather was poor, but unfortunately, I chose a hotel on the ile of Bute. I thought there was a road connection on the North of the island, but it was a ferry. When we needed to leave, Storm Ashley had arrived, and cancelled all ferries.

Aerial survey overhead Darlington, UK. Lidar & HR images. Unfortunately, one of our systems broke overnight as the aircraft was parked and we had to return home with a partially completed mission. Now the sun angle is too low to continue it, so the company will have to back in March of next year.

After two years at my job at an Aerial Survey company, I have decided to take the next step in my career and accept a position as Multi Engine class rating instructor in Southern Europe. Exciting changes ahead. Being part of a flight school with students from all over the world is great.

Looks like the mushroom hunting season is officially over in the Netherlands. Few edible mushrooms remain, and the ones that do are hardly worth it. The first two pictures are some of my favourite of this year, Dark Honey mushrooms growing on a sand dune in the Veluwe.

First royal Dutch government aircraft PH-PBA at Groningen. The aircraft was set to be sold but was saved a few days before the sale and will remain in flyable condition in the Netherlands. The pilots invited me to come along for a short taxi to a different stand. Truly an amazing aircraft.

Back on BlueSky now that a significant part of the people I follow on Twitter are also active here.

Picked up our TB9 from Colmar in France today. First time in 4 months I’ve flown the Tampico. Can’t upload videos on BlueSky, but there were really cool scenes where windmills extended out of an layer of overcast clouds.

Picking up the aircraft in Capua, Italy after maintenance on the landing gear system. Flying from Italy to the Netherlands is some of the most beautiful flying I’ve done in Europe.

Finally got permission to post these uncensored pictures. This is a Porche which was donated to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It was quickly converted to a commander unit. Infrared for driving without lights using the tiny display, integrated Starlink for comms, a winch, Weapon mounts and more.

Every time I fly over Denmark I’m blown away by how clear & clean the water is. Especially since the coastal water in the Netherlands looks like raw sewage.