Pilot Skills

Hone your pilot skills with the articles and advice below. Our sport-pilot articles cover topics of interest to novice and advanced general aviation pilots. Trust our ongoing training articles to improve your piloting skills.

Uphill/Downhill Landings Making sense of tricky landings What are the best conditions for landing uphill/downwind or downhill/upwind? It may seem dangerous to land into the wind but downslope on a snowy runway; yet landing upslope with a tailwind seems equally precarious.

From Tailwheel To Turbine Total transition training, the Gauntlet way Bill Stewart, until recently a lapsed pilot, sounds like something between a fighter jock and a kid in a candy store as he recounts his latest aerial exploits on the ramp at Chicago’s Aurora Municipal Airport (ARR).

Be A Great Pilot! Top tips for all aspects of flight The sheer enormity of the subject is a little intimidating. You probably could name several thousand characteristics of a “good pilot.”

Staying Centered If you’re a pilot, there’s more to staying centered than transcendental meditation It was 1984, and I was ferrying one of the last of the Cessna 207s to South America. It was a midsummer afternoon in South Texas, and the mushroom cumuli were climbing high into the stratosphere all along the border and south toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Flying The Corridors VFR flight corridors serve a useful purpose in congested and some not-so-congested airspace V­FR corridors have served an important function in U.S. airspace since the creation of the old TCAs (Terminal Control Areas) and TRSAs (Terminal Radar Service Areas), now less telegraphically renamed Class B and Class C airspace, respectively.

Formation Flying! Part II The cognitive challenges of flying lead Formation flying is a dangerous and, for me, compellingly beautiful and engaging experience.

Lowest To Highest From below sea level to a Colorado high in a light jet I spent over a year making the transition from piloting a TBM 700 turboprop to becoming a jet pilot; a process that has taken me through an ATP rating, two type ratings, a lot of simulator time, a jet trip to Paris, a bit of mentoring, one or two scary moments, some frustration and piles of cash

You Spin Me Round! Tutima Academy of Aviation Safety takes the unusual out of unusual attitudes When I was a student pilot and my instructor would send me on solo flights to practice maneuvers, stalls were always last on my list.

10 Signs Of A Great Pilot Observations from around the patch All of us have spent considerable time observing our fellow aviators’ takeoffs, landings, radio communications, preflight inspections and general behavior at (and away from) the airport.

Formation Flying The risks and rewards of flying wing I’ve seen few things in my lifetime as beautiful as looking down on other planes in flight while on the top of a wingover. Multiple airplanes acting as one require a significant amount of discipline, dedication and practice. Even after more than 3,000 hours of flying within 20 feet of other airplanes, I know that this is an extremely risky activity that should never be attempted without considerable ground and flight training.

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