Checkride or Bust

All about flying, training, pilot gear, and $100 hamburgers

Sporty’s G1000 Checkout Review

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IMG_0602.JPGThe Garmin G1000. Drool.

Allow me to generalize — pilots love gizmos and gadgets. And that’s part of what makes the Garmin G1000 so popular.

Like most pilots, I opted to train on steam gauges. My reasoning was simple: when I started flying the G1000 didn’t exist, and when I restarted flying, I didn’t want to take any more time than I needed to get back to speed.

I also felt like it would be easier to transition from round gauges to glass than the other way around.

So, hypnotized by the allure of those big shiny screens, getting checked out in the G1000 was one of my first flying to-do’s after I earned my PPL. To minimize the amount of time I’d need in the plane (and thus need to pay for), I bought Sporty’s Garmin G1000 Checkout course on DVD. [Read more…]

$100 Hamburger: Lancaster, PA (KLNS)

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When it came time to take my first passenger for a ride, I knew I wanted to head back to Lancaster, PA. KLNS is a great little airport for a few reasons: it’s got a great restaurant on field (Fiorentino’s), it’s far enough from Frederick to count as a cross country for my instrument rating requirements, and it has a lot of free transient parking.

It’s also home to one of the biggest pilot shops on the East Coast. [Read more…]

Lightspeed Zulu.2 Review

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[Note: For my review of the QT Halo in-ear headset, click here.]

I like Bose.

I’ve got a SoundDock sitting next to my basement bar, and I’ve got a pair of QC3 noise canceling headphones sitting in my desk at work. They’re both great products. So, when I decided that I wanted a new high-end aviation headset, the Bose A20 seemed like an easy choice.

But this review isn’t about the Bose A20.

The Decision

On doing a little digging into headsets, it was clear that the market was split in two camps: Bose vs. Lightspeed Aviation.

I didn’t know much about Lightspeed — my CFI has a set of A20s, and loves them. But [Read more…]