Grigore Rosu's Aviation Page

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I am interested in all aspects of aviation, from aerodynamics to designing airplanes, and from flying to building aircraft.

Airplanes I Fly or Flew

Before comming to the USA I attended for 6 months an acrobacy course in Romania, where I flew (dual, never solo-ed) about 40 hours in a Czechoslovakian taildragger ZLIN aircraft. In the USA, I got a private pilot licence and I am currently a member of a flying club, called Enginairs Club (login needed). We are 20 pilots in the club and own together 2 Piper Archer 28-181 aircraft, which I fly on a regular basis.

The Airplane I'm Building

I am building a four-person canard airplane from a kit produced by Velocity, Inc. The picture to the right shows how the airplane will look like after completion (change the background to taste: Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Yellowstone, etc.). Since the FAA requires detailed documentation on the building process, like many other airplane builders I decided to also fully document and publish on the web, with pictures, costs and time spent, all the steps that I take in the construction of my airplane. Click on the link below to visit my airplane's building log:

• Grigore's Velocity SE/FG

Weather

Aviation Weather Center has the latest METARs, TAFs, radar, etc. Below are links to the ones I'm using most often:

• KCMI METAR and TAF (Champaign)
• North America METAR - Java
• Radar - KCMI

AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) provides its members a good and easy to use weather service. To use it, one needs to be an AOPA member.

DUAT (FAA's Direct User Access Terminal) is a service for pilots that provides direct access to weather briefing and flight planning. The service is free, but one must have an access code and a password. To get these, one must possess a pilot certificate and a current medical.

Airports

Airport information and diagrams can be found many places on the web. Here are some common ones:

• AirNav Airport Information (not all airports have diagrams)
• FAA Airport Diagrams
• AOPA Airport Diagrams (works only if already loged-in AOPA)
• DUAT Airport Directory (works only if already loged-in DUAT)

Other Aviation Links

• Organizations: EAA, FAA, AOPA, DUAT
• Movies: Ride of your life, Plane stupid crush, Plane landing on freeway, Not the usual plane landing, RC plane crushes, Landing on LAX with damaged gear