Flying on Michael Doornbos

In 700 hours of flying I’ve been vectored over my house one time. Thanks a lot clouds.

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 21:29:28 +0000

(And yes the wavy picture is because phone camera shutters have trouble when propellers are in the frame)

Dodging thunderstorms. Again :-)

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 07:40:25 +0000

When you’re flying pretty much anywhere on the east coast from June to August the radio chatter is filled with “Request 10 degrees to the right for weather”. Yesterday I heard an American pilot say “Yeah, we’re not going through THAT.” Ha.

Spent the day dodging thunderstorms

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 18:20:56 +0000

Passengers barely noticed.

Sim time

Fri, 18 Aug 2017 07:02:21 +0000

Haven’t had time to fly this week, but simulator time keeps your head in the game. You become what you think about…

Sending the cabin frame off to get powder coated

Fri, 21 Apr 2017 08:56:37 +0000

Probably a light gray.

Landing an old beat up Piper Warrior at Hendersonville airport

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 20:05:51 +0000

Landing an old beat up Piper Warrior at Hendersonville airport. Which is an old beat up (very narrow) runway. [wpvideo wH1pe4cU]

Detecting spins in small aircraft

Sun, 12 Mar 2017 19:08:56 +0000

Here are three spins. The first I intentionally recovered poorly. The other two were more “textbook” recoveries.

This is just the graph of the slip/skid sensors.

Interesting that there is a clear pattern and threshold.

The goal here is to detect and give enough warning to a pilot to avoid and intervene on an impending unintentional spin entry.

Archived Comments

Paul T Breed (2017-03-13 00:31:45):

The traditional training spin is not what kills people… Next time you want to do spins go up and set up a fake landing pattern at altitude… Then get slow and do the base to final turn with some skid…. cross the controls and keep pulling back til it departs controlled flight… be high and be prepared as it will snap to inverted so fast you won’t know what happened….

Rules for pilots

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 08:41:09 +0000

I can’t find what newspaper this came from to attribute it to… But it’s pretty funny… because these are all very very true

B-17 Cockpit view and Bombardier Position Videos

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 10:47:31 +0000

I brought my GoPro but left it in the car (DOH!) so you’ll have to endure cell phone video. I can’t describe what a rare privilege the whole experience was. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGvXt8UEO0E] [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrNVutM8Dkc]

Checking things off of bucket lists

Mon, 17 Oct 2016 15:40:59 +0000

I am BONE tired. Spent the last 5 days (aka 2 months) helping hundreds of people check things off of their bucket lists. There are stories to be written down, but for now how about a beer and lots of pictures? [gallery ids=“924,923,922,921,920,919,918,917,916,915,914,913,912,911,910,909,908,907,906,905,904,903,902,901,900,899,898,897”]

It's B-17 Time

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 10:53:02 +0000

Tomorrow the flying museum B-17 “Aluminum Overcast” flies into AVL. A couple of us will greet it and then start preparations to open it up for the community to enjoy it. The weather is predicted to be fantastic. Really looking forward to this adventure!

Little blue lights

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 12:34:27 +0000

In the Navy I spent quite a bit of time on the night shift. I never get tired of blue taxi lights…

Detecting and predicting loss of control in flight

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 21:11:00 +0000

I’m currently working on detecting loss of control (LOC) on an overshoot of base to final. Using data models in X-Plane which depending on the aircraft model is known to be pretty accurate (there’s a certified commercial version suitable for flight training). Not practical to do this in an actual airplane for obvious reasons like crashing and fireballs.

Anyway, here’s a screenshot of data gathering. I’m collecting about 50 data points 10 times per second. I’m feeding this into a learning algorithm to teach it to predict the actions which may lead to an accelerated stall and/or spin.

First Flight for "Doc"

Wed, 20 Jul 2016 19:29:11 +0000

For the first time since 1956, the B-29 known as Doc took to the sky on a sunny morning in Wichita, Kansas. This video includes highlights from footage captured during first flight. More information at http://www.b-29doc.com

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CscShi3BV8Q&w=854&h=480]

A hard left turn for me

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 14:13:52 +0000

I think a lot about direction lately. My trip to Daytona to meet with other EAA leaders has really solidified what I’m looking for.

This sums it up perfectly in so many ways:

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_AztwklyIc&w=854&h=480]

Hey, once upon a younger year
When all our shadows disappeared
The animals inside came out to play
Hey, when face to face with all our fears
Learned our lessons through the tears
Made memories we knew would never fade

What a view!

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 18:20:04 +0000

Just as I climbed to get over the ridge into Asheville this morning coming back from Daytona I passed in between these two inversion layers #pilotlife

EAA Leadership Bootcamp

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 16:33:16 +0000

Down at Spruce Pine Air Park in Florida for a one day boot camp.

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“5312.0”] Workshop time[/caption] [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“2988.0”] Cool little grass strip I stopped at on the way down to Florida [/caption] [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“2988.0”] Daytona speedway[/caption] [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“5312.0”] I have a nose art fetish… [/caption] [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“5312.0”] Flew directly over NAS Jacksonville [/caption]

Adding two new goals for 2016

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 15:59:56 +0000

They can be easily summed up in the title of this book…

What does a UAS pilot do to prepare for a huge snow storm?

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 20:57:39 +0000

He files for a 9 mile radius NOTAM for the whole weekend over a really beautiful part of the country. That’s what.

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“800.0”] * the actual flying will be a small subset of this airspace but since they make you do a center point with a radius it has to be filed like this[/caption]

Just requested to add these new UAS models to my "fleet"

Tue, 29 Dec 2015 14:39:06 +0000

3D Robotics Solo
DJI Inspire
DJI Phantom 3
DJI Spreading Wings S900
DJI Spreading Wings S1000+
DJI Matrice 100
Chroma Camera Drone

According to the FAA it takes a few months for approval so I figured I would get these submitted now.

In other news, I’m building a fixed wing model as a competitor to the overpriced models currently on the market.

Defining a UAS operating area with Flight Service is a snap

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 22:52:00 +0000

Here’s my operating area for the next couple days on a building being painted. Just barely outside the 5 mile radius from the airport and well below the Class C Airspace.

Unedited first day at the Asheville Model Aircraft club

Sat, 07 Nov 2015 14:35:39 +0000

Turns out there’s a terrific model aircraft club that has a field in an unbelievable location just 20 minutes from my house. I’ve been looking for a place to practice flying and test systems to be ready for complicated production work .

The club has about 80 members, and in the 45 minutes we were there yesterday (a Friday) there were probably 20 airplanes in the air at different times.

Also, it’s hard to beat the view. Here’s my unedited footage of the location.

Took an old Piper Warrior out for a spin

Sun, 30 Aug 2015 18:48:39 +0000

We’re on a quest to figure out what kind of plane we’re going to buy. Today was a 1982 Piper Warrior II. Very comfortable but not a speed demon.

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“960.0”] Hottest. Co-pilot. Ever. [/caption] [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“960.0”] Final at KFQD for a break. [/caption] [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“960.0”] I definitely married up. [/caption]

My memorial weekend co-pilot

Thu, 28 May 2015 15:07:47 +0000

“Why haven’t we been doing this for years?”

So I'm a pilot now

Mon, 18 May 2015 16:47:26 +0000

At 7am on New Years Day this year I started a new journey. I decided that I had said “maybe I’ll learn to fly next year” too many years in a row.

As of Lunchtime last Friday I am a licensed Private Pilot. I spent most of my training in the very fun Diamond DA-20.