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What OTHER things do you love ... ?

Rhino, thanks for the nice comment. Here are a couple of photos…

A bike I sold but its a decent photo…

Another.

I’ve done bike racing, car racing, yacht racing, semi-professional sailing (drunk punters on weekend trips…….), guitars and keyboards (occasional singing), skiing (a lot), SCUBA diving (don’t like eating fish and don’t much like looking at them either), fraternising (not so much any more :( ), and flying since 2003. Ironically, flying was always the thing I desired to do most (well, maybe after the fraternising) but the cheaper things kept being available to me whereas the flying wasn’t!

Forever learning
EGTB

Diving



LDZA LDVA, Croatia

I am scared just looking at those cave diving photos

Darley Moor, Gamston (UK)

I am scared just looking at those cave diving photos

The same as flying – it’s all about risk management. I’m more safe 2 km back in the cave than average tourist swimming in the open sea

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Cooking! Yes, really, I LOVE to cook, do it pretty much every day. Do not, however, take pictures, leave this – food pics – to some deranged food bloggers. I like to eat my stuff….

I see an EuroGA flyin coming up to @172driver’s home base

LSZK, Switzerland

I see an EuroGA flyin coming up to @172driver’s home base

With pleasure! Although very soon most of you would have to fit some long-range tanks……

Kinda surprised that noone mentioned “travel” as a personal interest, but perhaps that’s implied when you’re a pilot?

The travel/adventure part is what makes flying interesting in the long run, I think…

My budget with family and the 3rd child being the TB20 is quite limited which confines me to low cost hobbies !

Apart from photography my other passion is Flight simulation.
I mainly prefer to simulate closely the procedures of heavy iron, not GA, and my favorites are the Boeing 727 and the Concorde, aircraft before the era of the FMCs when you actually had to aviate to get from point A to point B, laterally and vertically.

I have a virtual life as a virtual airline pilot (with virtual salaries, ratings progression, performance monitoring etc.) part of a live global on line community.

To add to the realism I always fly on line at VATSIM’s network, a free to join system where you connect and fly with LIVE pilots (aircraft), just like you from anywhere in the world, flying around you all under LIVE ATC (users on radar screens from home) with procedures and communications just like in real aviation. Training and exams are involved for ATC (obligatory) and Pilots (optional). From time to time I will fly there light GA aircraft as well (with similar instrumentation as our TB20) just to take the rust off my IFR procedures. Hunting horrible weather in such cases with difficult approaches in between terrain at night is one of the most often scenarios there!. The main advantage of flight simulation as I practice it is that, with 0 cost, it maintains your “be ahead of the aircraft” attitude we so much need in real aviation plus the communications (with the live network) for those who don’t fly often in real.

I used to fly with Microsoft FS2004 (FS9) but nowadays fly with FSX. As simulators they are nothing deep but act as the the “platform” for the add on aircraft packages you buy and add on it. These are actually what make it a detailed aircraft simulator. Companies such as PMDG, FSLabs, Majestic and HiFi (for weather) have released very high quality and deep simulation products.

As an example, when I got obsessed with the FSLab’s ConcordeX I bought and read books about it, got DVDs and sat down and learned all about its procedures before managing to cross the Oceans at Mach 2, FL500+ connecting New York with London or other coastal city pairs in such short times. Its the only (civilian) aircraft you could make the sun rise from the west, have two new year’s eves in a span of 4 hours etc. ;-)

Here is my Flight Simulation screenshots album and I close with few favorites:

Deboarding pax at Phuket VTSP (in FS your imagination is the limit, Olympic Airways never flew Concorde’s LOL!)

At 48N40W westbound over the Atlantic FL552 Mach 2,02 crossing other opposite flying Concorde (the dot at 2 o’clock) in VATSIM network.

Landing at Heathrow’s 27L 3:13’ after JFK take off

Last Edited by petakas at 14 Jan 09:50
LGMG Megara, Greece
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