Up, Up and Away!

Thank you for taking time out to visit, I hope this blog provides some entertainment and enjoyment while you're here. A little about me, I'm a working professional, born and raised in the UK, now living in Ontario, Canada. I have a growing family and am outnumbered by three great kids, so things are busy to say the least!

I made this blog with the intention of sharing my passion for aviation and my rediscovered hobby with flight sims, and will be looking to make at least a post a week (if not more) when possible, but as I'm sure many of you can relate, finding time isn't always easy, especially when you'd rather be on the flight deck!

Just a quick foreword/disclaimer, this isn't a commercial enterprise, there's no revenue generated or associated with this blog, no sponsors or affiliates and any links provided are simply for reader convenience. Views, reviews, anecdotes and the like are purely my own and as always will be subjective. (It's ok to disagree!)

Specs, Airspace, Hangar.

My rig is I'd say pretty decent but could use updating in a couple of places in the future: I'm sporting an i7 8800K, Gigabyte Windforce OC 2070 Super 8GB, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 1TB HDD, a Honeycomb Alpha Flight Yoke, Logitech G Flight Rudder Pedals, and the Logitech G Flight Throttle Quadrant.

I fly almost exclusively on the VATSIM network, simply because the idea of sharing the skies with fellow simmers and being able to interact with live ATC is difficult to beat! I typically only get to fly a couple of hours, two or three nights a week due to my "IRL demands" (which essentially means I'm just adulting when I'm not at the yoke).

As I've just gotten back into flight sims not too long ago, I started back "at the beginning" with the trusty C172. I've endeavoured to stay true to the rules and procedures of the aviation world, while still trying to enjoy the hobby given my restricted time, so my hangar is somewhat limited: A2A Accu-Sim C172, Carenado PC-12, Aerosoft CRJ-700X, Aerosoft A330 and MJC8 Q400. The (great) problem I have now is wanting to limit my investment in new aircraft given the upcoming release of Microsoft's Flight Simulator by Asobo.

Virtual Airline.

To make my flights more interesting and to enjoy the company of like-minded individuals, I joined the excellent virtual airline Canadian Xpress (CXA for short). It's my first and only airline, so while I can't compare, I can certainly share that my experience has been nothing but great; lots of great resources, knowledgeable members, some real world pilots and lots of fun activities. You may see some of the screenshots that get posted (as above) sport the CXA livery. You can find me there and on VATSIM flying as CXA218.

What's Next?

Well that's the intro, from here on out, I'll be posting flight stories, articles, possibly some reviews and other tidbits, so until then aviators - enjoy the (virtual) clear blue skies!