I know I haven’t updated this blog in quite a while. Lately, Share Aviation, Twitter and Facebook grab the lion’s share of my attention span when it comes to sharing my aviation adventures. I decided that I need to give some aviation love back to my blog, so here I am, reviving it. I have about 20 hours of video sitting on my hard drive awaiting editing; I’m hoping to get catch up on all of that over the next couple of weeks.

Last weekend I logged my 100th hour in my log book. I think this is rather impressive, considering that I earned my PPL at hour 66 in December and the Central New York winter wasn’t really hospitable to aviation adventures this year. In addition, I started a new job in June, and I was traveling all over the country for that new challenge for two weeks, so being able to still get in 34 hours in six months is good in my book when it comes to a being essentially a “weekend warrior” kind of pilot.

Contrary to my original plan of immediately getting ready for my instrument rating, the past 34 hours have been devoted to honing my skills, learning new things as a VFR pilot and most importantly, enjoying my love of aviation. I’ve buddied up with a couple of other newer pilots and we’ve taken turns riding safety pilot for each other practicing landings and approaches, maneuvers and getting in some foggles time. I’ve logged a few cross country trips since earning my ticket, which has been very enjoyable.

For my 100th hour, my friend Chuck and I up went up in the Cherokee 180 and flew from KRME to KSYR to shoot the ILS approaches at both airports. It was my first time shooting an ILS. I did it without foggles just as an “introductory experience” to doing this. It was also my first time flying into KSYR, or any Class C as PIC, which isn’t really different than flying into the Class D at KRME but it was a little bit of a big deal to me. I grew up in the Syracuse area and even as a small child I really loved watching all the airplanes go in and out of the airport. My grandparents lived closed to the airport and I can remember spending many summer afternoons playing in the back yard and watching all the air traffic overhead. Briefly I wondered if there was some young person down below watching us fly over just as I did so many years ago.

This week we are flying to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. We are leaving on Wednesday morning with plans on arriving during the allowed traffic window between airshows on Wednesday. We have hotel accommodations in Appleton but I might spend one night under the wing of the Cherokee 180. If you’re in the area, feel free to stop by and say hello. If all goes according to plan we’ll be parked in VAC / Vintage Camping.