Whiskey Alpha Pilot

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

13/08/2026

Twenty minutes to pump up one tyre on KK.

The valve sits behind the spat and lines up with the gap in exactly one place. Never the place you need. So out come the chocks, off come the tiedowns, and there I am shoving a ton of Cessna along the pad on my own.

They look good. I'll give them that, and I lost the syndicate vote four to one. But a bare tyre tells you everything in half a second. Tread, both sidewalls, valve, slippage mark.

Is it a technical argument? Not really. It's a moan. Here's the whole thing.

https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/touch-and-go-logbook/why-i-hate-spats

11/08/2026

Who forgot the battery? I did. Obviously.

The Moxy is a carbon monoxide detector built for aircraft. Rather than beeping to itself on the cockpit floor where you'll never hear it under ANR, it runs inline with your headset so the warning arrives in your ears.

That's the theory. I never found out, because it needs a nine volt battery and it doesn't come with one. I'm so used to everything turning up with the batteries already in that I never thought to check. And I didn't have a spare in the flight bag either, which is the worse of the two.

Two lessons out of a device that never switched on. Not bad going.

First impressions, an honest look at the price, and what the alarm thresholds actually mean:
https://whiskeyalphapilot.com/kit-reviews/moxy-co-detector-first-impressions

10/08/2026

Soft tyre on KK. Should have been five minutes. Was not five minutes.

The pump hid. The valve hid. Shoving a ton of aircraft while fi*****ng a tiny flap is not fun. I hate Spats. hen who forgot the rear tiedown

https://youtube.com/shorts/sxEAQBCRtnE

08/08/2026

Duxford yesterday, and this thing came past.

Nellie B. A P-47 Thunderbolt, red checkerboard nose, D-Day stripes, and a noise you feel in your chest before you hear it. Eighteen cylinders. My 172 has four cylinders and 180 horses, and I'm proud of every single one of them.

Different league. Same sky. ✈️