Posts from September 2011

Reviews

Free Book – Nine Lives: Adventures of a Lucky Pilot

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About six months ago I bought my first e-reader, an Amazon Kindle. To be honest I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. I didn’t want another gadget that I had to update and troubleshoot when I wanted to do something as simple as read a book. The other big thing was the screen. Like many people I spend most of the day in front of a monitor and didn’t want another back lighted screen in front of me. So after reading about ten books I can safely say the Kindle is awesome. I love it plain and simple. It is very convenient and the e-ink screen is not like a computer screen at all.

One major advantage to an e-reader is being able to load free books. There are tons of free books online whether they be in pdf, epub (nook), or mobi (kindle) format. In order to convert and organize your collection you need to download a free program called Calibre.

I recently came across this free book from the EAA website and thought it was great. It is called Nine Lives by Malvern J. Gross. The book is written by a private pilot who spent most of his life flying. The author passed away in 2010 and I found this article from the Washington Post that does a nice job summarizing his accomplishments. I won’t make a big summary of the book here because that can be found elsewhere.

Mr. Gross was actually an early proponent for the development of Morristown Municipal Airport (KMMU). I thought that was neat considering I currently fly out of MMU and can see how big of an airport it has become and how he had a big role in making that happen.

I liked this book a lot because it shows how you can have a successful and exciting life in aviation without being a commercial or military pilot. Any regular Joe Pilot can break records and cross the country even with a family in tow. So give it a read I think you will enjoy it.

Update:

The EAA recently updated their website and broke the links for the ebook download. I have uploaded the book to my server to continue the author’s wishes of sharing it.

Nine Lives – PDF   or  Nine Lives – Kindle/Mobi

Everything Else, Photos, Trips

NJ Airport Adventure Quest – Update

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As I mentioned in an earlier post my current goal is to land at every public-use paved airport in New Jersey.  I have been making steady progress on the list for my last few flights. As of this post I am more than halfway through. Assuming the list is correct there are 37 paved airports in the state. I have completed a full landing at 21 airports so far. With less than half left to go I decided I should update you a bit with a pireps and pictures I took along the way.

Hackettstown N05 – While there wasn’t much to say about the airport itself I decided to take the plane up to 10,000ft for the first time. There was a wicked wind aloft that made for some impressive ground speeds for a little 172.

Millville MIV – Dubbed ‘America’s First Defense Airport’ Millville is a former military base that is now a public use airport. Checkout this page for more on the history of the base. While I was there I saw a huge Chinook helicopter practicing landings and hovering.

Cape May WWD – Formerly known as Naval Air Station Wildwood. Cape May airport has a museum on the field and the Flight Deck diner. We ate a the diner and can report it was good and had fairly typical prices for your typical NJ diner.

Solberg-Hunterdon N51 – Spotted the MetLife blimp while I was here. I think it was in town for the Barclays golf tournament.

Monmouth BLM – This airport has active skydiving. I learned that while you should never over fly the field during jumping you can continue to land. There were several planes in the pattern ahead and behind me all while chutes came gliding down. Pretty cool.