Best office on Earth

Some people ask what is flying all about... Well simply speaking it is all about having the nicest office in the world...

Shortly before sunset.

Towering cumulus and a thunderstorm anvil in the distance...

Stratospheric shots with atomic blast colors...
Could you resist flying after gazing at these natural wonders?

Seguin Cheese and Midwestern Dairylands

Just came back from a short roadtrip in the Great Lakes area. I camped mostly in the wilderness to save on costs, enjoy a genuine natural environment and add a touch of adventure to the trip.

Drivin' the Midwest

I first spent a whole day in Milwaukee wandering in the streets and along the Milwaukee River. Milwaukee traces its roots to an early settlement established by French and Canadian explorer Solomon Juneau in 1818. Back then, Milwaukee was mostly used as a stopping point for fur traders.

The distinctive shape of the Milwaukee Art Museum

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Later, numerous German immigrants settled in the area and helped build Milwaukee as a major brewing and manufacturing powerhouse mostly known for being home to the Miller Brewing Company - Miller Time Yay - and the Harley Davidson Motor Company.

The Harley Davidson company is the last American company to manufacture bikes and was founded in 1903 by Harley and Davidson.

A young guy trying one of the numerous Harley Davidsons on exhibit in the museum. Apparently Harley Davidsons are no longer reserved to bad guys and wild hogs!

I then headed North to attend Air Venture 2009 in Oshkosh which is the largest gathering of pilots, aviation enthusiats and industry exhibitors in the world. During the airshow, more than 10,000 aircraft head to the Frank Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh making it the busiest control tower in the world. About 700,000 visits during a week-long clebration of flight makes it the must-attend airshow for any aviation enthusiast.

The Aeroshell demonstration is one of the most spectacular at Oshkosh

Pilots usually enjoy the numerous displays, exhibits, museums, air stunts and formation flights during the day and then camp next to their own aircraft during the night. This year, visitors could enjoy a C5-Galaxy, a C17, the White Knight 2, the Skycatcher and many many other... What is worth mentionning is that this airshow specifically aimed at the aviation enthusiast and pilots meaning that visitors can touch aircraft, step inside, manipulate the controls and have some demos and explanations. This is quite different from the Paris Airshow or the Farnborough Airshow which are almost exclusively aimed towards big fish and other professionals and where the paying public is treated as if it were an annoying bug loitering around multi-million dollar jewels.

Camping in Wisconsin. Could you spot Rodolf on the picture ?

Later in the day, I headed due North towards the state of Michigan to reach Lake Superior. I initially elected to do some wild camping over there in the Hiawatha National Forest but a night-encounter with a bear followed by the eerie sounds of wolves howling close-by in the forrest played tricks on my mind and I finally decided to finish the night in my car...

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The next day I visited Pictured Rocks National Seashores and I must admit it is well worth it. The park is little-known but amazingly beautiful, laying on the coast of Lake Superior and featuring interesting carvings and colors over limestone cliffs.

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Most of the gorgeous landscapes can only be reached by foot after a bit of trecking making this park quiet and uncrowded. Exactly what I was looking for and great for a spiritual retreat!

Chapel Rock on the southern shores of Lake Superior with its pine atop is quite amazing.

Pristine white sand beaches may also be found outside of the Bahamas...

I walked for about four hours on a 9 miles track across woodlands to reach Chapel Beach, Grand Portal Point and Mosquito Beach. And what is great is that I just met five or six persons. With so few people around to pollute the environment, it is no wonder that the waters around the lake are cristal clear. Later in the day, I headed back South towards Green Bay, Sturgeon Bay in Wisconsin and Baileys Harbor where I spent the night.

Interesting limestone formations close to Grand Portal Point

This part of Wisconsin is cherry-land with cherry trees abound everywhere. A lot of farms were even offering some interesting pick-your-own-cherries tours of the plantations. From Northport at the top of th ePeninsula, I took a thirty minute ferry-ride to Washington Island, a little island populated by Icelandic and other Scandinavian people. It is a nice escape from the vibrant Doors county. Later in the afternoon, I resumed my drive South and overnighted in a corn field close to Sheboygan.

Lighthouse on Lake Michigan, Algoma

Finally, during the last day I slowly drove along the coastline of Lake Michigan towards Milwaukee to catch my flight to Hotlanta. I really liked Wisconsin, the "Dairyland of America". It is very different from Georgia: it is clean, people speak proper english and people do ar-ti-cu-la-te. Nice to hear some good English after so long in the low-lands of the deep South.

EAA Air Venture 2009

July 2009 and it is time to polish my wings and get ready for the ultimate aviation lover's meeting in Oshkosh.

St Louis

Here is a short report concerning my trip to Missouri and Illinois. With one of my friends from Florida, we elected to visit the city of Saint Louis and then go West to visit the Ozarks. The flight to St Louis was a short one hour and fifty minutes hop aboard a Boeing 717-200.

Roadtrip to the Ozarks

First on our visit was the Gateway Arch, the iconic monument of St Louis. Also known as the Gateway to the West, it was designed in 1947 by Eero Saarinen as a tribute to the expansion to the West.
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The geometric shape of the arch is described by the hyperbolic cosine function. This function typically describes catenary and inverted catenary.

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An inverted catenary that supports its weight is only in compression with no shear and therefore its shape is ideal.

The Arch in the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

From the top of the Arch, the visitor will enjoy an incredible view over the surrounding area. To the North, the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, to the East, the state of Illinois. To the South lays the Mississippi river and finally to the West lays the city of St Louis.

St Louis from the top of the Arch

During the day we also went to the Annheuser-Busch brewery that manufactures Budweiser beers, to the Union Station that used to be St Louis major railway station and that has been transformed in a vibrant neighboorhood with restaurant ans shops and finally to Forrester Park where the 1904 World Fair took place to celebrate the purchase (or not) of Louisiana.

The next day we headed West to St James and the Ozarks Riverways. After spending a few days in the city, going to the countryside brings a lot of fresh feelings. The Ozark riverways is home to several fresh water sources and is best viewed by renting a canoe and paddling down the Current River.

Countryside in the Ozark

Finally, we decided to celebrate Independance Day by visiting the Meramec Caverns. The Meramec Caverns were formed by the erosion of large limestone deposits over millions of year. They were used to extract saltpeper for the manufacture of gunpowder during the Civil War. In the 1870s, the caves were used as a hideout by famous outlaw Jessee James.

Stalactite formations in the Meramec Caverns
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A short movie is available here for your enjoyment. Have fun!

Charleston

Below are a few pictures taken during my trip to South Carolina. From Atlanta, we drove East to Augusta and Columbia. After Columbia, we reached Congaree Swamp, a huge floodplain that gets swamped a few weeks every year and which is home to bold cypress trees of incredible size.

Large Trees in Congaree Swamp

Next was Charleston, a nice and typical laid-back Southern city with old-fashioned ante-bellum houses. It is also home to Patriot Point which features an aircraft carrier full of US Navy aircraft as well as a submarine. I went there in 1986 when I was four years old. Apparently I did show a lot of interest for what I was seeing at that time especially gazing at the aircraft and the arrestor hooks and cables.

USS Yorktown mooring in Charleston

Loitering on a jetty on Folly beach, we witnessed a baby shark being caught by an angler. Actually we saw several anglers getting sharks. Makes you think quite a bit since the end of the pier is just a few hundred meters off the beach where people were swimming...

A baby shark caught off the beach in Folly Island

Finally, we ended the trip with a visit to Beaufort (where there was no wind...) and to Hunting Island that is home to an interesting state park with waters that are so warm we could spend the whole day relaxing and drifting in them.

White Sand beach on Hunting Island

Here are Orville and Wilbur...

I took the commercial pilot checkride on the fifth of May but it took about a month before I got the official confirmation that comes with the oh-so-cherished plastic-card. I put so much effort and bet so many financial ressources in this endeavor that.... I am simply so happy.... In a nutshell, yesterday Wilbur and Orville suddenly appeared on my mailbox....

And it reads:

Has been found to be properly qualified to exercice the priviledges of:

Commercial Pilot

Airplane Single Engine Land; Instrument Airplane

Private Pilot Priviledges

Airplane Single Engine Sea

English Proficient (<---!!! )

The adventure may continue.... ya...la...la...lala...

Cascade Range

Here are a few pictures from my last trip to the states of Oregon and Washington. We were extremely lucky for this roadtrip as we got plenty of sunshine. I was certainly not expecting that from these green coastal states with lush vegetation. Instead I was more or less bracing for impact with raindrops and snowflakes... What a pleasant surprise!

A few loops here and there along the Pacific Coast and Cascade Range

The road trip took us from Seattle to Aberdeen and then along the Pacific coast down to Lincoln City, Fort Klamath and Crater Lake National Park. We then proceeded north along the eastern slopes of the Cascade Range up to Portland and Mount Saint Helens. At that point it started to rain and we elected to change course and go for a short loop around the Olympic Peninsula. After that we proceded to Mount Rainier, Anacortes and the North Cascade National Park before ending the trip in Seattle.

Cape Arch and the coastal waters of Oregon

During the first part of the trip, we drove South and we followed the picturesque Pacific coast. The landscapes are oscillating between large forests, wild bays and capes. The coast being somewhat wild, it is a heaven for bird watchers and marine mammal spotters. We got our fair share of terns, cormorants, pelicans, puffins, yellow crested puffins, murres and hummingbirds as well as seals and sea lions.

Continuing further South, we ended up in Oregon Dunes which is a pretty place where one may enjoy the sight of large sand dunes meeting a wild pine forest. Next we drove towards Crater Lake National Park. The park encompasses Crater Lake's caldera, which rests in the remains of a destroyed volcano called Mount Mazama. Around 5700BC Mount Mazama collapsed during a tremendous volcanic eruption loosing about one third of its height. The eruption formed a large caldera that is now filled with water forming a beautiful lake with a deep blue hue. Crater Lake is one of the deepest lake in the world.

Panoramic view of Crater Lake. These are deep blue waters...

We then proceeded North to Portland visiting the town of Bend as well as Newberry Volcanic National Monument, a park with lava tubes and lava flows. North of Portland lays Mount Saint Helens. Mount St. Helens is most famous for its catastrophic eruption on May 1980 which was the deadliest and most destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States. Former President Harry Truman died during the eruption.

Shaken by an earthquake, the north face of the then tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive avalanche. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted about nine hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscapes were changed forever.

Mount Saint Helens, obviously after the explosion...

After visiting Mount St. Helens, we elected to visit the Olympic Peninsula and reach Cape Flattery the northwestern-most point of the continental United States. The peninsula is home to lush forests due to the high humidity. Mount Olympic, the highest point of the peninsula stops the eastbound clouds coming from the Pacific Ocean. The humidity contained into these clouds condenses when the air tries to rise over the slopes of the mountains and this results in abundant precipitations.

Huge moss-covered pines and firs along the road

The peninsula is also home to some very scenic and deserted beaches. With no one around, there is no better place to listen to the sound of rolling waves. Deadwood and tree logs are everywhere in this part of Washington. A lot of them are peacefully laying on the beaches after having drifted for a while over the sea. A testimony that violent storms can happen in this area of the country.

Dead wood along the coast of the Olympic Peninsula

After driving around the Peninsula, we headed back inland towards Mount Rainier. Most of the roads over there were still closed because May is too early in the season and layers of snow are too thick to be removed. We therefore continued our way to the North Cascades National Park and to Anacortes. In Anacortes we boarded a ship for a cruise in the Georgia Strait trying to spot some Minke whales, Killer whales, Porpoises and some other large sea mammals. We got treated by a pod of Resident orcas roaming along the Canadian coast of Saturna Island. There was even an energic young orca that breached twice over water!

A female killer whale taking a deep breath in the waters of the Strait of Georgia. Orcas are the ultimate killers of the seas

After the cruise we went back to Seattle stopping in Everett. In Everett we visited the Boeing factory and got a glimpse at the Boeing 787-800 and let me say that this bird will be a mighty one. And if it actually delivers on its promises, this is going to be a killer of an aircraft both performance-wise and economically-wise.

Seattle skyline with Mount Rainier in the distance

And that is all about this trip. We did not get a chance to climb the iconic Space Needle this year but instead we enjoyed the view from Magnolia Bluff over the city with Mount Rainier in the background. And even better... there is a short movie of the trip available here. Ain't that a blessing?