Aircraft, flying, airports

You can find here photographs of the various aircraft from which the photos and videos on this web were taken. The aircraft have registration numbers of three countries – USA, Czech Republic and South Africa which is the countries of which I hold a pilot licence. It is interesting that despite all the international standardisation and unification of procedures one needs to undergo additional exams and testing when wanting to hire and airplane registered in a different country. However, if you fly in the same country an aircraft registered elsewhere, there is no problem and you can do so. Fortunately EU has progressed in the standardisation of pilot licensing so a licence issued in one EU country is valid throughout all of the EU. more

Airports look different everywhere and many are new for me. I don´t have photographs of all the airports where I landed but you can find here at least some. more

When “on final”, when the runway of yet another airport unfolds in front of me I always get excited and most of the time I take yet another picture of a landing. I have also taken photographs during various other phases of flight but unfortunately the most interesting parts of the flight - when one is struggling with the elements or with whatever adverse conditions – remain undocumented. Simply because there is no time or mental capacity to use the camera at such a point. more

In my mind, paragliding is the most interesting way of flying – the flying machine only weighs a couple of kilograms and you can carry it on your back where-ever you need to. You can fly without assistance of anyone else and flying itself does not cost anything, you make no noise (if you fly engineless) and all your body can feel the freedom of the open space. There is nothing better. I have only identified one problem and that is the exposure of the body to potential injuries. I paid my price too when flying in the Highlands of Czech Republic in 2007. It took me quite some time to fully recover and my family forced me to stop paragliding altogether. So I now look forward to my next life when I plan to enjoy paragliding much more intensively. more

Flying into some of the smaller or mountain airports without GPS is difficult to imagine. Also,  if you fly in an unknown territory,  limited visibility, bad weather or over a desert and in high winds, maintaining a correct course would be next to impossible. This section displays photographs of the “glass cockpit” display which integrates GPS information with other devices such as all the engine and flight data. The photos are taken at different locations during various phases of flight. more

This section contains photos of some of the people who had the courage to join me on some of my trips, or the people who looked after the aircraft we flew or influenced somehow at least a part of one of the trips. This section contains also some photos of unusual situations in various countries. more

This section contains photographs which, for various reasons, may be interesting. So the collection contains photos of the first solo celebration in Texas, the landing of B747 in Manston just a few meters away from me waiting for a departure clearance, the Cirrus SR22 which crashed on the Split airport runway after a journey from Austria on which it was escorted by Croatian Air Force fighter jets because it did no communicate with anybody. Other photographs show the damage that was inflicted by hurricane Katrina to an airpark in the New Orleans area or the damage cause to my aircraft by the unprofessional services at Corfu airport. more