Whiskey Alpha Pilot

06/09/2026

Flying home from Duxford always sounds straightforward until the queue ahead of you is two Spitfires, a Harvard and a Tiger Moth. Can't really complain about a hold like that.

Caz came along for the ride. We had a look at Leavesden Studios on the way back (my Nimbus 2000 is definitely wearing out), then it was the usual nemesis, a straight in approach to runway 08 at Elstree. Dodge the pylons, get her down, and the tower still had one more surprise waiting.

New video is up now: https://youtu.be/cTvpdF7GzMY

We never stop learning, and the day we do is the day we should stop flying. ✈️

06/09/2026

Some of the smaller aviation Facebook groups seem to delete real pilot content and fill up with AI-generated dross instead, all in the name of "the algorithm." Here's why I'm never going to play that game.

https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/touch-and-go-logbook/gatekeeping-ai-dross-facebook-groups

05/09/2026

Jack's doing his ATPLs. I'm about to restart my IMC. He's the oldest one on his course, older than some of his classmates' parents by his own admission. You'd think that age is disadvantage. Buit is it?

We talked about it mid-flight in KK, why we think the twenty year olds fresh out of school are the ones struggling, not him. New video is live now, link below.

https://youtu.be/8R5WXElxmHg

04/09/2026

Twenty times more radiation at cruise than on my kitchen table.

For a passenger that works out at about a tenth of a chest X-ray, and it is not worth a moment of your attention. For the crew flying it every working day for thirty years, it is a very different sum.

The full write-up is on the site, including why Cornwall granite matters, and the regulation that has quietly covered this since 2019.

A Radiacode 101 on a commercial flight: 0.05 microsieverts on the ground, 1.02 at FL350. Twenty times more, and why that matters to crew not passengers.

02/09/2026

Ever had that chap at your wingtip the moment you stop. You know the one, he's full of goodwill and ready to save you a minute.

Every so often that minute turns into a scraped wingtip, a torn covering, or a very long phone call to your engineer.

We run a sterile cockpit in the air for a reason. So why does that bubble pop the second the wheels stop? Wheels stopped and noise gone doesn't mean the mags are dead or the prop won't turn. The only person who knows is the pilot, still working through the checks.

New in the Touch and Go Logbook. On uninvited help, marshallers who aren't marshallers, and who actually has command on the ground.

Ask, and it's all yours. The ladder, the guidance, the hand.

https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/touch-and-go-logbook/are-you-a-helpful-stranger

30/08/2026

Don't climb into an X-ray machine at the airport.

Background radiation where I was standing: 0.05 microsieverts an hour.
The detector going through the bag scanner: maxed out at 15,000.

Maxed out, as in the machine couldn't measure any higher. So the real
number is anyone's guess, and I have no plans to find out.

Full video and the write-up on the YouTube Channel and the website.

29/08/2026

I bought a radiation detector because I like things that go beep.

Then I took it through airport security with the recording running, and then onto a plane.

One of those was considerably more eventful than the other. Watch the video to find out which.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZkxLDwvs1I

22/08/2026

I admit it, I bounced the landing at Duxford. More than once. And when I went through the footage afterwards, the answer wasn't what I expected it to be.

New video up now with the whole approach from the cockpit. A straight in I traditionally make a mess of, two active circuits, two active airfields, traffic departing the runway I was about to land on, and me quietly re-running checks I'd already done. That's usually a sign of olverload.

Would you have gone around? Watch and tell me what you'd have done:

Yes I bounced the landing at Duxford. More than once, and then when...

18/08/2026

Yes the image is AI. Im not that good an artist, but the rest is me, and im certainly not. Back to the article….

Every aviation video you've ever watched has an invoice attached. Not a metaphorical one.

KK runs to three figures an hour before I've filmed a thing, and there's a monthly standing charge that turns up whether I fly or not. Then the fifty hour check, the hundred, and an annual that can go four figures on its own. And the airfield burger. Extortionate. Delicious.

A while back somebody told me I need a CPL because I fly and post the footage. So I went and read FCL.205.A properly, along with the definition of a commercial operation. Here's what it actually says, and what a small aviation channel actually earns.

https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/touch-and-go-logbook/what-it-costs-to-make-an-aviation-youtube-video

16/08/2026

YouTube has doubled the watch hours you need for the YouTube Partner Programme. Four thousand becomes eight thousand from February.

I posted in a group saying that was it, I was done. 853 people liked it. Fifty six left a comment and most of them said the same thing. Yeah. Us too.

Took me a couple of days to work out I might have made a bad decision quickly instead of a good decision slowly. You don't press on with a high, fast, unstable approach and hope it comes good in the last fifty feet. You go around, work out where you actually are, and have another go.

https://youtu.be/G1PgO0ZwB6U