Flying

At the end of 2021 I started flying real airplanes, not only simulated ones.

While trying to learn, how to fly gliders in a club, I realized, that this is not my cup of tea and I switched to flying something, where an unpowered landing is considered an emergency.

I managed to obtain my sports pilot license end of April 2025.

"Trust me, I'm a Luftsportgeräteführer"

Links

Open Source Tools

There are a couple of useful tools for gliding and flying in general.

Skylines -flight tracking and visualization

XCSoar -flight computer, also very good at recording flight tracks

Add Times -a little app to compute flight hours from paper-based flight log entries

IGC2KMZ -a converter in case you want to view your flight-track in Google Earth.

Enroute Flight Navigation -moving map and navigation software

Prosoar -flight planner, mainly for gliding

Stratux -Linux based ADS-B receiver

OpenAIP -flight navigation maps worldwide under a CC license.

All of them are Open Source, either web based, work cross-platform, or have at least a Linux version available.

Commercial Tools

SkyDemon -seemingly the most prominent flight planning and moving map tool. Costs money.

DFS AIP -German Aeronautical Information Publication. Basic information is free to use.

Flying

Flugschule Otto Funk -where they taught me to fly microlight planes

@DeltaMikeHeavy -Youtubing from inside a FK9

CFWU -a podcast (in German) about commercial aviation

omega tau podcast -a podcast (English and German) with an aviation-related track