Merry Christmas!

And remember that The Sky is Our Home!

Stunning F-35 Shots

From Flightstory.net

All photos (c) Lockheed Martin

Blackshape Prime - Sirius Magazine Trailer (GoPro HD)

Here is a footage of the presentation of the Ultralight aircraft Blackshape Prime, one amazing machine.

Synthetic Vision on an iPad

Not perfect but almost there!

Aviation Blogging and Gadgets

That's what this blog is all about. In a single word is Aviation but following the title of this post it is a Blog and also has some gadgets. You don't think so? Well I have been watching this blog statistics and I have found that already 137 views were from the Apple's iPad. Great!
I don't have one, and I really regret about that not because I want to consult or post in my Blog outdoors but because there are a huge number of applications that can be very useful for pilots.
Here is a footage of AvWeb.com in YouTube relative to the Jeppesen applications for iPad witch I think are amazing and with great capacity. This can be a good revolution in aviation specially about charts and flight navigation.

House cleaning

You might already noted that this blog had some changes in the look. Well I hope that you like the new look as I do and just to complete the new look I only have to say that the picture in the back is a FSX picture from an EC-135 in the region of Madeira with the scenery Wonderful Madeira almost real I should say.

S is for Souda Bay

Past three months the Portuguese Navy Helicopter 19Th Detachment Fénix Flight went on a mission in the Aden Gulf against piracy aboard the Portuguese Frigate N.R.P. "D. Francisco de Almeida".

The mission took about three months but we have been in the area of operation just about two months and the rest as passed in transit from and to Portugal. Our journey started at August the 15Th and lasted until November the 15Th the day of our return to our home base near Lisbon.

During the transit to the operation area the ship and helicopter detachment spent most of the time training for the upcoming mission, training procedures and means of operation related to the type of mission and to maintain the qualifications of both aircrew and ground crew up to date.

Our first stop was in Greece on the beautiful island of Crete at a military base near Shania known as Souda Bay. Because of maintenance issues I had the opportunity to visit Shania Airport and Military Air Base operated by the Greek the American and at that time and because of the Libya operations also used by the French and the Italian. Well a pilot among airplanes what more can I ask for this Christmas?

Here some pictures of my stay in Crete. Some are images air to ground from the helicopter and other of the air base, hope you enjoy them.

From this position to the bottom Photos by: Roberto Cachaço

Phoenix in the Cave

Somewhere near Somalia

Before leaving checklist!

Of course besides being a helicopter maintenance technician in the Portuguese Navy I'm still a civilian pilot and continue to look for a flying job witch is becoming a huge task almost with epic contours due to the number of low time pilots in the same situation.

As I'm going to be out for a considerably long period of time I have tried to fly as close as possible to the day of the departure to the mission.

Today was the day.

Here are some pictures of the flight from Cascais to Portimão.

Going out!

Some of you know that in a short time I'll be going to the Aden Gulf participating in the Ocean Shield NATO mission. This mission comprehends in the protection of ship convoys that are being attacked by Somali pirates and the Portuguese Navy as part of the NATO will participate in this effort to protect these ships from any threats.

On board the Portuguese frigate "Dom Francisco de Almeida" - a dutch navy M class frigate - will be the Fénix Flight Detachment witch I'm part of.

I will try to maintain contact and updates, specially for the spotters and enthusiasts that love the Portuguese Navy Lynx, so stay tuned!

See you soon.

Boeing 747-8 Freighter saved the longest for last - certification testin...

After a 17 hour flight it's done! The Boeing 747-8F Freighter is fully certified and ready for the costumers.

EAA AirVenture 2011 at Oshkosh!

From today until July the 31 is running the "World's Greatest Aviation Celebration" at Oshkosh

To those who won't go there stay tuned in the official EAA Airventure Website and watch daily videos on Youtube produced by AvWeb.com and AeroTV.com

Windy days

Does anyone has Saint Peter's cell number? It was just to ask him if he wouldn't mind to close all the windows and doors. It's windy here.

About my Swiss experience...

A few posts ago I've told you about my experience on my trip to Switzerland. The Airline, aircraft, airports, etc. Now this post is to talk about something a bit different from this Alpine paradise.

Those who are related to the business aviation or at least have knowledge about the subject are well familiar with one or two Swiss aerodromes such as Samedan at St. Moritz. But Switzerland isn't just business aviation with aerodromes near the ski resorts. As a matter of fact on a train trip from Geneva Aeroport to Brig, a small city in the Canton of Valais I saw 5 airfields and could count more two that are the Geneva Airport and de Lausanne Aerodrome. I mean this was only in a space of a Inter regional train 2 hour trip, amazing. Two of the airfields had a well treated and seem in top condition grass strip, the rest were all with concrete or tarmac runways.

But of course that an airfield without aircraft isn't interesting but fact is that except one aerodrome all the others had light airplanes, light helicopters and a huge quantity of gliders, I must say that I'm in live with this. One of these airfields is Sion Airport witch is a regional airport not bigger than Cascais in Portugal and approximately the same type of normal operation such as air schools, business jets, commuters and some helicopters, here there was also helicopters and airplanes for crop dusting. Interesting.

On the first day of my time in Lausanne suddenly I heard a familiar noise that sounded like a radial aircraft engine and as I was in a very beautiful wood tower in a high point of Lausanne soon I've started looking at the sky for the origin of this noise. Small sparkling in the eyes and there he was, a very beautiful Navy Blue WWII aircraft. Now that's one thing that I wasn't prepared to see in Lausanne. First with the cloudy sky and the distance I thought that the "flying musem" was something like a Curtiss Hell Diver but in a research here at home I found out that it is a General Motors TBM3.

And what a machine!

Resuming if I found out that the swiss living conditions are very good there are no doubts about it. Now, would I leave Portugal to go a live there in the case of a Flying Job? You bet I will.

Paris Air Show 2011 - Eurocopter X3

New Engine options presented at Paris Airshow

On the way back to Lisbon

On the last Post I described my trip to Lausanne, Switzerland. Now here's the way back to Lisbon.

First there was the train ride from Lausanne to Geneva in order to get to the Airport. The check in went normally without problems and the queue wasn't long as it was early  for my flight. After a coffee and a small internet consult, about that internet in Geneva Airport has 1 hour free all you have to do is sending your cell number to receive the password, as I was saying after the coffee I've headed for the security checks witch I think are getting to small for the number of passengers but very well organized witch allowed to walk through without major delays.

The boarding went normally and there I was again in an Airbus A319 from Iberia. Now there was a special thing about this aircraft. It's name was the "Lince Ibérico", Iberian Lynx, in all seats among with safety card a on board magazine there was the explanation of the name of the aircraft. Normally Iberia names their aircraft with personality names but this was different. On the flyer there was a small text about the Iberian Lynx witch is the only wild cat close to extinction. There are only small groups mostly in Spain that live in pure freedom  and there are several tries in Spain and Portugal with a moderate success to reproduce the species in natural reserves and specially made parks to that effect.

After flying on the "Lynx" there I was again on Terminal 4 of Madrid Barajas and after another smooth landing I really start to think seriously about the best landing contest thing.

This final leg started in the worst way... with a delay. Well it wasn't a huge delay just about 30 minutes but still a delay. You have to do it better Iberia.

With a good tail wind and a fast boarding the delay was practically recovered and at the time of landing there was only a 10 minutes delay witch is a good recovery.

The landing at Lisbon Airport wasn't so smooth as the rest of this journeys landings due to some cross winds and turbulence on final of runway 03 but even though a good one.

Balance of this trip: first of all I would like to express here my appreciation  for the sympathy of the Iberia crews not perfect but very good; second I think that the flights went very normally without anything abnormal to report about the them; third the price was really a good price and the turnaround at Madrid is no sacrifice after all I'm a Pilot.

One thing I think isn't so good but I understand due to the economical situation of Europe and specially Airlines, you see there was no catering service unless you pay and a Sandwich at 7€ is to much I'm sorry after all Iberia is still a Flag Airline not a low cost that treats passengers as cattle sometimes. But there are economical reasons for this and the competition for the internal routes in Europe is at it's top and of course with the competition of the low cost airlines reducing anything on board is a tough competition and the truth is that my tickets were cheaper than Easy Jet's cheapest ticket when I bought them so let's think it compensates the sacrifice.