The AOPA has announced it's 2012 flight training scholarships and it's worth $5,000 for someone pursuing a Sport, Recreational, or Private pilot license.

You need to be a US Citizen, at least 16 years old, hold a Student Pilot Certificate (just need to go get your first medical exam), and be an AOPA member.

Learn more at the AOPA's flight training web site: http://flighttraining.aopa.org/ftscholarship

Airline, Charter, Corporate, and Instructor pilots all frequently go through recurrent training to keep their skills polished and continue through a process of life-long learning. If these people who are flying hundreds (sometimes 1,000 or more) hours per year need recurrent training to stay sharp, safe, and effective in the cockpit, how much more does the typical recreational or personal-business oriented pilot need recurrent training to stay sharp?

Ever wonder what it's like to be an air traffic controller workin approach radar at a busy airport? Think it should be pretty easy to move those blips around on the screen and keep everything flowing smoothly?

Give it a shot with this online web game based on ATC approach control!

http://www.atc-sim.com/

At the south end of lake Coeur d'Alene you'll find the little logging town of St Maries and they've got a nice little airport tucked in the valley. Denver, one of the certified instructors you can learn to fly with, took his student down for a lesson and snapped this fun picture of our mighty 150 next to the F100 fighter-bomber they have mounted on a pedestal.

Youtube is full of fun aviation videos, but some stand out... this is a year-end video from Rob Holland Airshows that's too much fun!

Our Cessna 150 rental will be down for the next few days going through its required annual inspection. We hope to have it back up and flying within a week. The reservation schedule has been updated to block the airplane off and will be opened back up when the airplane is returned to service. Thanks!

Chris is an ambitious 16 year old who completed his first solo flight Saturday morning in our Cessna 150. Chris and his dad are working to restore a classic Luscombe tail dragger and he has ambitions to fly old war birds eventually.

Congratulations Chris on an accomplishment that few people have had the determination and discipline to attain!

The University of North Dakota produces some excellent training videos which are shared free-of-charge on the Internet. They've just released another good video, this one on "Precision Instrument Approaches". This is a very good refresher for instrument rated pilots or students.

Here's a flight we took Saturday evening over to Spokane, then north of Coeur d'Alene and back. With a little editing and time compression there is about 1.5 hours of flying in a 9 minute video.