Kudos2Fly

Article done by wwww.aviationweek.com. Written by Benet Wilson on June 30, 2009

I’m sure that everyone in business/general aviation can agree that the industry has been taking a beating in the past seven months.  Several efforts – including No Plane, No Gain and GA Serves America – have been created to counteract some of the negative images created by the media.

I learned about another effort via my followers on Twitter (@avweekbenet).  Two GA pilots – and active aviation bloggers – have come up with Flying Across America.  The mission of pilots Jason Schappert and Vincent Lambercy is to fly a Cessna 150 from Daytona Beach, Fla., to Catalina Island, Calif., with plans to hold rallies on behalf of General Aviation.

Schappert is a 1,500-hour Certified Flight Instructor and was awarded AOPA’s Top Flight Instructor Award at NIFA 2008. He currently works as a flight instructor in the central Florida area and operates Schapp Aviation. He also blogs at www.m0a.com and is on Twitter at @mzeroa.

Lambercy is a Swiss private pilot living near Frankfurt, Germany with an IFR rating and more than 360 hours total flight time.  He blogs at www.plasticpilot.net and is on Twitter as @plasticpilot.

Lambercy “met” Schappert after they traded comments on each others’ blogs and started doing cross posting.  “One good series was about what a student pilot and an instructor expect from each other at different stages of training,” he said.

The pair came up with the idea for Flying Across America via Twitter, said Lambercy.  “We were exchanging tweets about the price of flying. Jason chose to own and operate a Cessna 150 because it makes possible for his students to earn their certificates for less than $5.000,” he said.  “I stupidly asked him what it would cost to fly across America in his plane. A few tweets later, the project was born.”

The number of pilots are decreasing each year, and some thinks aviation is only a luxury, or even worse, a threat, said Lambercy.  “What is the last positive GA event that you can recall without searching for too long?” he asked.  “The recent cross-border flight of a stolen Cessna, for example, got a lot of media attention. Do you really think it was such a threat ?”

Although the flight isn’t schedule to happen for about a year, the pair thought it was important to start creating positive buzz before, during and after the flight.  “We also need time to build a community of supporters, find partners and raise funds,” he said.
“The example of krizphoto.com (who designed our logo) and destinjet.com (the FBO hosting our first stop) are perfect examples of that.”

The partners plan on 70 hours of flight June 18-July 10, 2010.  “The goal is not to set a speed record but make friendly, fun and positive trip,” said Lambercy.  “For performance and safety reasons, we plan to stay south of the Rockies in both the Florida-California and California-Florida directions. The exact route will depend on where we’ll find supporters.”

“For the time being, the two first stops will be Destin, Fla., on the invitation of destinjet.com) and Baton Rouge, La., where an early fan of us invited us,” said Lambercy.  “By having us sleeping at home, we’ll save on the hotel costs on this stop.”

The trip has been budgeted at $15,000, said Lambercy.  It is being financed partly with the partners’ own funds and partly with donations and sponsorship, he said.  “Obviously Jason will not charge for his time. We are selling miles on our web site, with patronage starting at $3.75,” he added.  “An important secondary goal of ours is to make a donation to an aviation charity in the end, so each mile helps, but they are primarily funding the flying and accommodations.”

The effort already has almost 300 Twitter followers, almost 50 members in its Facebook group and a handful of sponsors, said Lambercy.  “We’re examining any offera and are happy to work with anyone having an aviation product or service to promote. We also help our partners where possible,” he said.  “For example, both friendsofaviation.net (non-profit trying to make all aviation fans talk together) and mytransponder.com (social network for pilots) help us spreading the word about our project and we’re happy to return the favor.”

The most important at this time is to help spread the word, said Lambercy.  “The more people will receive our message the better,” he added.

There is so much to learn in this world.  People need to be more “interested” in things then being “interesting”. The people that seem to be interested in life and things around them.  Also make this world go…  One way to stay healthy and happy is to be learning something new and something that is a challenge to learn. So go out there and challenge your self….

Well I’m back again.  For a while I wasn’t watching my weight. I didn’t have really any goal for losing weight. I don’t know why you need one needs a goal, but I sometimes do.  Well I have one now. We are going on a cruise Sept. 6, 2009. I would like to get down to 120 by then I’m at 134 right now. I don’t know if I will make it, but I’m hoping I’ll get close.  I’m going to be exercising and watching what I eat.

We will see what I lose in the next few weeks..

I just booked a cruise for Ken and I.  We are going on Carnival Valor on Sept. 6th, 2009.  I booked a balcony for us.  We will be going to the Western Caribbean. Which we have been to a few times. But on this cruise we have a couple of ports that are pretty new to us.  Belize we have only been once and Isla Roaten we have never been.  So we are looking forward to those two places.

Our schedule is this.

Sunday, Sept. 6th Miami, Fl

Monday, Sept. 7th Day at Sea

Tuesday, Sept. 8th Grand Cayman

Wednesday, Sept. 9th Isla Roaten

Thursday, Sept. 10th Belize

Friday, Sept. 11th Cozumel, Mexico

Saturday, Sept. 12th Day at Sea

Sunday, Sept. 13th Miami, FL

We got a really good deal with our American Express points.  Plus with leaving out of Miami, this is one of the best deals we have ever gotten.  So I’m really looking forward to this trip. Now I’m starting my file for this trip.  I’ll write more once we get closer to the trip.

We had a nice family gathering.  It’s nice just to get together for no reason at all. We had a good turn out of people and the weather was also good.  At least while everyone was eating. We did get a down pour right when a few people were leaving, but didn’t lasted long.

Well here are some photos..  Family Get Together Photos

I made it to Sun N Fun 2009 on the last day.  I drove from Clearwater Fl. to Lakeland. It took me  1 hour 11 minutes. Not bad for Tampa traffic, but it was on a Sunday. There weren’t a lot of people at the airshow and many of the planes had already flown out the day before.

One of the first things I did was walk up to the Sun N Fun radio station which airs during that whole show and gives interviews.  I wanted to meet Dave Allen from Twitter.  I had met him through Twitter. He was volunteering there so I had a chance to meet him.  We ended up heading out to the flight line, which I wanted to do before anymore of the planes left.  I did get some shots of planes taking off and taxiing.  Afterwards, we headed back to the display area where we parted ways.  I plan to see him again next year.  I also met Max Trescott; another Twitter friend.  They both were very nice people. I’m sure they will be at Sun N Fun next year.

I then wanted to get a good look at the “Flyingcar”.  What an idea that someone has finally been able to do.  Not a bad price either considering that a Piper Arrow is $300,000 plus.  The Terrafuga is going to cost  $190,00.   It takes 90 seconds  to go from flying to driving; not bad.  Hopefully they will get some takers; only time will tell.  It will be neat to see it in action.

Of course when you are at Sun N Fun you have to walk through the four big blue hangars.  There you can find every thing under the sun for pilots.  I wasn’t in the market to buy anything so I just walked through and stopped at a few booths and of course stopped at the Loves Landing booth.  Our neighborhood has a booth there like some of the other “fly-in” neighborhoods.  If you ever are at Sun N Fun stop by and say hi.

I stayed a while to watch the airshow.  It was impressive, as usual.  Beautiful weather, but a little hot. But hey, it’s Florida.  It was a nice airshow, although a bit on the light side for people coming to it.  But I did come on the last day.  Next year will be better, since my husband will be able to come and we will be going in the middle of the show.   I have been going since 1996 to Sun N Fun. I probably will keep going even though it cost more money to go every year and it’s pretty much the same set up every year. I don’t even need a map anymore to know where I’m going.

But its about the celebration of flight and pilots.  It also keeps aviation in the public eye; which is important these days.  I think without airshows like this, aviation would even be more of a non reality to a lot of folks.  As long as I can fly and walk I’ll be going to Sun N Fun and other airshows to show my support to the aviation community at large.

I’m already planning to attend next year April 13-19, 2010.

Blue Skies and Tail Winds.

It’s been a while since I have posted anything.  I have been working on starting up a business.  Well it’s called Kriz Photo. I’m going to take pictures of peoples airplanes and turn them in to “ART” pieces they can put on their walls in their homes and offices.  I have already turned out 4 pictures and working on 1 right now.  All of them have been great products.  I plan on improving the pictures and producing more Airplane Photo Portraits.

Sun N Fun is around the corner, so I hope to promote there.  That would be a good place to start.  I also have a web site called www.KrizPhoto.com.  Ken helped me get it up in running.  Its a real nice web site.

I also will be selling my other photos on the web site.  I will see were this goes, but I hope it goes national.  I can’t wait to see where I’ll be at with this next year when Sun N Fun comes along, maybe have my own booth there.. That would be nice.

When I hear people say “I never need that or What use would I have for that.”  I think they are limiting them selves.  Ken and I were coming up on our contract with Sprint/Nextel.  The phones were okay, but old. They did get the job done. But they did not work in our homes or even in our neighborhood.  But work out side of our neigborhood.  Since we had a contract of course. We kept them.  But we now only had about 2 1/2 weeks left.. So we started looking around for a new cell phone company.

We looked at either AT&T or Verizon. Ken did most of, if not all the research on this one.  He was either looking at the Iphone or a Blackberry.  I know a little bit about the Iphone being some of our family members have them.  But didn’t think much about them other its just another phone with to many “things” on it.  Well I was ready for a change anyways.  So we made the switch and went with the Iphone.

I think that was the best move we could have made.  Since Ken wanted to started using his phone more for business and couldn’t with Sprint and our “lack” of service.  AT&T has provided that for us. Although the service isn’t prefect. We do have service in our house. It ranges from 1-3 bars, its better then none.  Plus the phone is totally amazing….. I have never been this excited about a cell phone before. I can have my calendar, Picasa, music, Podcast, news, games, pilot stuff, Facebook, email and some many other tools to use.  It also has a camera, but for me that’s just something fun to play with.. For any of my “real” photography I use my DSLR camera. But the camera is still a nice one. Even adding phone numbers and contacts is easy now.

Apple did do a nice job on this “Phone”.  I think I’ll keep this one for a long time.  I’m sure someone will come up with something better. But for now this is it.  By changing and trying something new I have expanded my world.

A year and 47 days. That’s how long it took for my mom to get an kidney.  The call came about 12:30am on Feb. 26, 2009.  Which happens to be our anniversary (Ken & I).   You wait for that call all this time then when it comes you think what do I do now..

My mother headed down to Tampa General Hospital around 5:30 in the morning.  I tried to go back to bed after we got the call. But that wasn’t easy.  So I didn’t get that much sleep that night.  I got up around 7am and see what was going on.  My mom still didn’t know if she was really getting the kidney.  Only that the Dr.s were doing a lot of tests.  So I decided to call and see what was going on.  She was indeed going into surgery to have a kidney put in.  I then went and called my dad.  Which my mom surprising hadn’t called my dad yet.  So I did.  I guess with everything going on, she really didn’t think about that.

I headed down to my mom’s house to help clean it up.  Then headed the next day down to Tampa General Hospital.  By then she was already back in her room.  It took around 8-10 hours for the surgery.  Everything went well.  The kidney started working right away, which was nice to hear.  It was an 22 year old kidney and a perfect match.

I ended up staying down there for about 7 days.  I had to do that until my dad could get home.  To help my mom out with there house. I stayed at my sisters house for a few days.  When they were ready to discharged her she was ready to go.  Frankly so was I.  I got tired of staying around the hospital.  It was nice to go.  The kidney has been working great so far.

It is amazing that they can do transplants now like this.  My mom will always have to have to medication so her body will not reject the kidney.  So she will always be under a Dr.s care. But at least she is not on dialysis and is still alive.  She is getting her life back… She has a long recovery but in the long run it will be a BIG change for her. She will not have to carry that dialysis machine around when ever they travel.  Also she can start doing hobbies she hasn’t been able to do for a while.

A family had to make a decision on weather to donate there love ones organs.  This may have been an easy decision or not.  But that decision has made my mom’s life so much better.  I would just like to thank that family for doing that.  I use to carry a organ donor card, but it has since gotten losted. I think I’ll start carrying one again.

I thought to my self “Why not do it..”  I have been taking pictures for about 4 years now with a DSLR Canon camera. I am think getting good at taking pictures. Also I go to a camera club every month and doing an online course through NYIP. I have made about 22 pictures now that I would consider good pictures that anyone would want to put on their walls at home..

So I have put them up for sell on my web site.. To the left right under my name is KRiz Photo. If you click on that link you will see the photos. Hopefully you will like them enough to want to buy one.

Well I don’t know what will happen, but I have to try this and see if I can be one of those people that sells their and not have it sit in a closet collecting dusk.