Monthly Archives: April 2015

How an Australian glider pilot obtains a US Glider Pilots License

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I want to be able to fly gliders as “pilot in command” in the USA via a US FAA license issued reciprocally on the basis of my Australian one.

I also want to be able to fly powered aircraft in the USA on the same basis, but that is actually fairly simple. It is the glider part that isn’t, due to some unique aspects of the way gliding is administered in Australia.

Because the process turns out to be surprisingly hard (and non-obvious in places), I have documented it here, in the hope that it might help someone else in the future.

That said, please – only read on if you enjoy the sheer masochism of aviation paperwork… along with the unavoidable acronym soup involved in anything specialised…

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Tesla Model S cup holders learn a new trick

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When I took delivery of my Tesla Model S, I knew that it had a lot of cool hardware that was slated to be enabled progressively in future software updates. Forward looking radar, steering-wheel control servos – all sorts of nifty things.

This morning, my son Felix found out about a very cool piece of hardware that has been quietly built into cars manufactured since late last year that include the ‘cold weather’ (or ‘subzero’) package.

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