NEW PHOTOS: Alexei Flying

[Zanzibar]

Here's some new photos of Alexei flying the CIRRUS SR22-GTS earlier this week in Duluth, Minnesota.



http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=4297984&a=31820723&f=

 

[Skatehappy]

Thank you for sharing these great photos.

 

[Mamouchka]

Thanks for the great photos Zanzibar

 

[Julie O]

Awww, fabulous of you to share these, Kathleen! It's a privilege to "be there" with you, as Alexei actually is making another one of his dreams come true.

He'll make an excellent pilot! :agree:

Julie

 

[Blue Bead]

Thanks for the great photos, Kathleen. :agree: Alexei looks so excited and happy. How cool it is that you can create a photographic scrapbook of his flying lessons, and be so generous to share the results with us.

 

[Mathman]

Did you go up with him? Those cockpit photos are super, especially #7. Will this work appear in any of the skating magazines that you write for?

Mathman

 

[NJSk8Fan]

Wonderful photos! My husband is jealous, he's always wished he could learn to fly.

 

[Zanzibar]

Will this work appear in any of the skating magazines that you write for?

Mathman

Hey Mathman - glad you like them - we'll have a photo and some comments from Alexei in an upcoming issue of Canadian Aviator magazine as part of a larger story on the airplane's parachute recovery system.

This was really just for fun - have wanted him to try this since we went floatplane flying 3 years ago, and now the time was right.

 

[Mathman]

One more question. Are you a pilot yourself, in addition to your astonishing array of other talents?

 

[Zanzibar]

Oh my - aren't you the sweetie-pie! (insert winking emoticon here, LOL)

Actually, my whole life (since 16) has been aviation and flying and most of my career as a commercial airline pilot - so that made this really fun to finally get to 'mix' the two: skating and flying.

Too bad we can't get Boeing to sponsor some of these skating events...there must be an endorsement opportunity in here somewhere.....


(FOR MATHMAN: you might be interested in this as it's all about quad mechanics, math 'stuff', lol - - it's an aerospace magazine story on Alexei and Brian - came out a few months ago.
http://www.falconjet.com/whatsnew/falconer_article.jsp?DOCNUM=34237&IDOCNUM=34235
In this online version there is no photo of Alexei :scratch: but in the actual magazine - he's got a full page doing 'Racing' and there's a cool time-lapse of Timmy doing a quad which they kept on this web version, but unfortunately much smaller - in the actual mag. it's spread across two pages.)

 

[Katya]

Thank you so much for the pictures ... for the opportunity to share just a little of Alexei's joy of flying for the very first time

 

[Eeyora]

To bad there are no pro skating competitions. This would have made a good fluff piece.

 

[Silver Lining]

I just noticed the caption on this one:

http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=4297984&a=31820723&p=72230385

"Up over Lake Superior which Alexei kept arguing was 'not the biggest lake in the world!'"

I guess a Russian would know this:

http://mbgnet.mobot.org/fresh/lakes/largest.htm

 

[Julie O]

I read the article on the Falcon page (thanks for the link, Kathleen ), and glommed onto the part about the hinged boots. Some information about them has been published in skating magazines in the past couple of years, and a fluff piece was promised on Canadian TV during the Junior Worlds, I think, but it never made it into the broadcast. :sheesh: Now large full-page ads for them are showing up in the skating mags.
Has anyone here heard whether any well-known skaters are now using them?

I personally hope that they (the boots) revolutionize the whole sport by becoming commonplace very soon. I'm so saddened by the constant stream of injuries and/or career-ending problems that our best skaters have suffered, like Alexei, Takeshi, Tim, Evgeny, etc.
I think that this revolution may be starting with a few far-seeing coaches who are putting their young, very talented skaters into the hinged boots. I hope so!

Julie