Other Flying-Related Sites

A small list of other web sites and resources that I found useful as I learned to fly and / or that you may also find useful, amusing, or just diverting (in no particular order):

• My flying blog Yankee Alpha Foxtrot Bravo, which takes up this Diary's story a few years later (2004) as I start doing the instrument rating and continue on with intermitent aerobatics training.
  
  
• Joe Campbell's "Diary of an IFR Ticket", an entertaining diary of a local flyer's struggle to get an IFR rating by flying 52 hours in 18 days spread over three weeks in 1993. (And, yes, not only have I met Joe since I wrote this Diary (it turned out he's a friend of a friend), but I've flown with him in his Tiger, one of the nicest plane's I've ever flown).
  
  
• Dylan Smith's flying pages -- a nice collection of photos, articles, diaries, etc.
  
  
• Paul Groothuis's flying diary -- Paul's learning to fly in England, near London, and has his own flying diary. It's an interesting contrast to what it's like out here in California -- I don't envy him the weather or the cost :-). [Note: Paul's diary seems to have disappeared lately (2004), but I'll keep the reference alive for a while in case his diary returns. I realise he has other more pressing things to do given his resume :-)].
  
  
• Dauntless Software -- the people who wrote the FAA written test software that I've been using. There's also a bunch of other useful stuff (like frequency sheets and x-country planners) for download there as well. I've also been very successfully using their IFR version for my IFR rating.
  
  
• John Ewing, CFII -- a local friend of mine and also my instrument instructor through the Alameda Aero Club.
  
  
• Ben Freelove, CFII -- another friend and club instructor. Yes, I host his website, and designed it as well, but...
  
  
• Gene Whitt's website -- Gene's a (very senior) instructor at KCCR (Concord, CA, just over the hills from Oakland), and his website has a wealth of useful and interesting observations, tips, lessons, etc. I learned a lot from it, once I got over the somewhat chaotic and all-at-once layout (or lack of it...). As he says, "Over 1700 separate topics averaging over 300 words each and totaling over 500,000 words. Diagrams next year." (Hey, Gene's been saying that last bit as long as I've been reading his site :-)).
  
  
• Avweb -- a good commercially-run aviation website. News, reviews, opinions, information, classifieds, etc. -- pretty much everything you'd expect in a web site devoted to aviation. Makes a lot of the more conventional flying magazines look a bit pointless, if you ask me -- by the time you read something in Flying, it's been on the Avweb site a month or two, with illustrations, further-reading links, etc.
  
  
• AOPA Online -- The Airplane Owners and Pilots Association's web site. AOPA does a lot of good work in defence of GA and publishes a pretty good magazine, "AOPA Pilot". Worth joining, if you ask me (yes, I'm a member).
  
  
• The Alameda Aero Club -- the flying club I belong to. Small, non-profit, friendly, relatively inexpensive, based at KOAK (Oakland, California). I could never afford to fly without being a member....
  
  
• The West Valley Flying Club, one of the better San Francisco Bay Area flying clubs (they even pinched one of my aerobatics photos to use on their home page (the "Go Acro!" ads) without asking...). If you live in the West Bay, Peninsula, or upper Silicon Valley, and you want to fly, join 'em.
  
  
• Oakland Flyers -- an alternative to the AAC if you're an East Bay kind of person and need to rent complex or multi-engined planes.
  
  
• Oakland International Airport's home page. Might give you some sort of flavour of the place. Bear in mind that Oakland (OAK) is to San Francisco International (SFO) as Newark (EWR) is to Kennedy (JFK)....
  
  
• Airnav -- a very useful (but not offically-sanctioned) web version of the US FAA's Airport and Facilities Directory (A/FD). An excellent place to start when you want detailed information about a particular airport. Also has full details of US VORs, intersections, etc.
  
  
• DUATS -- a really useful on-line version of many of the FAA FSS functions for US-registered pilots. You'll need to be a pilot (ot student) to access this, but (in my opinion) if you are a student or a pilot, you should be using this. Good example of how the web can help, but it's still a little primitive.
  
  
• BePrivate -- a small San Francisco firm that offers really good anti-spam services. Yes, I use them, and yes, I did part of their website. And yes, they're friends of mine -- but they're still the best, if you ask me.
  
  
• Mezze -- a really good restaurant in Oakland. If you're in the area, drop by for an excellent dinner (yes, OK, I know the owners and do photography for them, but I liked and recommended the place before I ever knew them). You might even see some of my commercial photos on a wall out back there somewhere...
  
  
• The Usenet newsgroups rec.aviation.student and rec.aviation.piloting. Both groups are populated by a large number of flying-literate posters, but like any Usenet group, there can be periods of low signal / noise ratios and outbreaks of pointless flaming. I found the newsgroups really useful for learning the sort of things not covered in textbooks: particular issues related to particular areas or types of flying; what pilots and controllers really think about things (and each other...); the sort of things other people went through to get their license; and useful tips and experiences.