UCAP Meetup - Nashua, New Hampshire

Had a great time on Saturday with some old and new pilot friends. There is a podcast I listen to religiously called The Uncontrolled Airspace Podcast (UCAP). It's 3 knowledgeable aviation guys sitting around discussing interesting topics weekly. The show has a fairly large audience and the web site also has an active forum community. This has lead to a number of gatherings of the listeners to the podcast with one or more podcasters. One such meeting took place this past Saturday. We had 10 listeners and Jack Hodgson, the moderator of the show, who lives in New Hampshire.

This is my second such gathering, but what made this one special was being joined by my new friend and newly minted pilot, Rick Felty. I met Rick at the first UCAP meetup just prior to his taking his PPL checkride. I follow him on Twitter (@rfelty) and have enjoyed his many videos posted on Youtube. I agreed to fly to Norwood, MA (KOWD) and pick Rick up and he agreed to photograph and video the entire adventure. Since it's an hour up to KOWD from my airport, I asked another new pilot, Michelle Judice to ride along. Michelle is also a budding video maker, so I thought she would enjoy meeting Rick as well.

Here is Rick's record of the day: http://jhwellington.shutterfly.com/513

A video of our trip from Norwood, MA (KOWD) to Nashua, NH (KASH):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHepdOdeTGI

And a video of our landing at Norwood, MA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdnP1XsNzc0

A Ride in a G550 - This Ain't No Simulator!

My friend Milt H., the Director of Corporate Aviation at my Fortune 500 company, sent me the following e-mail last Wednesday:

Just got the G550 out of maintenance and need to take it on a check out flight. What are you doing Friday?

My immediate reply: Taking the day off, of course.

Readers of this blog might remember, Milt is the friend who got me the ride in the G5 Simulator, but he had always said he would take me in the real thing if he had a chance. Well, true to his word, the chance was this past Friday and I jumped at it. All I can say is, "Awesome!!" Just the three of us in a $60 million jet that can hold 16. Thirteen minutes to 37,000ft -- we were past Albany in 15 minutes. What a ride!

It was a great way to start the weekend.

The Eagle Has Landed

After weeks of preparation and many levels of approvals and signatures, my son Jack began his Boy Scout Eagle Project a few weeks ago and we completed the construction phase this past Sunday. A Boy Scout Eagle Award Project must benefit a non-profit organization and be permanent or sustainable -- it must provide on-going value.

Jack's project is to winterize an outdoor kennel for our local Adopt-A-Dog shelter. The director wanted to cover the opening between the roof-line of the kennel and a surrounding fence by installing removable roof extensions. By covering this gap between the roof and the fence, it formed a wind barrier which they believe will raise the temperature in the kennel by about 20 degrees. This will allow the center to use the outdoor kennel year-round. These extensions need to be removable so the kennel will not be too hot in the warmer months of summer
Boy Scouting tries to teach leadership and communication skills to teenage boys. The purpose of the Eagle Project, in addition to it's community service benefit, is to give the Eagle candidate the opportunity to demonstrate effective leadership and communication. The scout can not perform any of the work on the project himself, but instead must plan the entire thing, organize a group of volunteers to help, show them what needs to be done, and then guide them through the process. It's quite a lot for a sixteen year-old to handle.With the construction now complete, Jack must next finish the fund raising to pay for the materials used. That should happen in February and March. Then he must write up the entire project for a review by a Board of Adult Boy Scout leaders. The hard part is behind him, but the next two parts are not without their challenges.

Click here to see photos of the project.