Regularly Scheduled Geekery
with Adam Fast

I earned my Private Pilot's certificate in September 2006 after seven months of training. I belong to The Joplin Flyers, Inc. flying club. At this time we have two aircraft, a 1978 Piper Archer II (N2912M) and a 1966 Piper Cherokee 180 (N9203J). My flight training and Private Pilot certificate were earned in our previous plane of many years, a 1966 Piper Cherokee 140 (N4694R).
 
My favorite flying is done simply to enjoy flying. Aviation is a true tool for transportation, but I don't use it that way most of the time. One of these days, I'd really like to get my tailwheel endorsement and fly something similar to a Piper Cub - simple aircraft with a lot of emphasis on fun.
 
I'm in the early planning stages of building an airplane of my own, as well. It's very early on and I'm still trying to learn as much as I can before I select / start to work on anything. I'm also designing my own glass cockpit to be utilized in this project, which is the largest personal software undertaking I've done. It's (so far) still a lot of fun to design and work on. I realize that this route will certainly take much more time than utilizing something off the shelf, and probably even cost more too - but I'm ok with that. I'm doing it to learn and have fun. Geographic software is one of the things I really like geeking out on. AirVenture 2009 this year will be a big catalyst in helping get some lift under the wings of this project. I'm not particularly well versed in what it can/will take to build an aircraft, but am absolutely committed to learning how to do it properly, safely, and also have fun throughout.
 
You can find a large collection of my favorite aviation links on the Resource page on the Joplin Flyers' site. But, I've gathered a small collection of my "ultimate favorites"
 
AirPigz - a great blog about flying with an emphasis on fun
RunwayFinder - Great resource for finding airfields and other things
MyMetar - Easy way to have METAR information available at a quick glance in a "dashboard" type app
The Joplin Flyers, Inc. - The group I fly with. Our site features (behind authentication) a pretty advanced aircraft scheduling / maintenance system, if I do say so myself (I wrote it for us, in Django of course.)
WxGk - This site (also one of my projects, and written in GeoDjango (Django plus its' built-in geospatial extensions)) showcases pieces of the backend being built for my glass cockpit project.