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.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012 Over Water, Under Canopy! Saved by the BRS parachute Cylinder-head temp gauges are creeping noticeably toward the red lines. Not good. No, this isn't looking good at all.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011 The Dangers Of Noise Fatigue Noise fatigue may be an often-overlooked cause of aircraft accidents in general aviation I was tired. No, beyond tired. I was fairly well-whipped. There are no legal limits imposed on flight hours associated with ferry flying, and stupidly.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011 When Airplanes Collide: Avoiding The Unexpected With midair collisions showing no sign of decreasing, “See and Avoid” is more important than ever It’s ironic that most general aviation pilots consider a possible engine failure as their greatest fear.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 IFR Communications: Serious Business What you say and what you hear on the radio are more than mere words I listened carefully to the clearance on the first go-around, shook my head in exasperation, and wondered if the controller had been a trumpet player in a previous life.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011 Fear Of Dunking The airplane doesn’t know if it’s flying over water or land. The pilot does. From two miles up, big water looks pretty much the same all over the world.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011 Save On Avgas American avgas is becoming almost as expensive as European petrol. Here’s how to use less of it. It barely matters what you fly these days— avgas is starting to comprise a greater percentage of an airplane's total operating cost.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 Greasing It On: 20 Tips To Get ’Er Done It’s all in the details. And in the pilot’s attitude. We all know "those" kinds of pilots: They never bounce, are always down in the first few hundred feet, and put it on slicker’n a squashed gopher (I dare you).

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 Challenging Runways How to handle tough landings What makes some runways more challenging than others? The length? The wind? What you had for breakfast that morning? What?

Tuesday, September 7, 2010 Demystifying ATC How to work better with “the voice” in your headset It seems we all have a story, some event in our lives that brought us into the aviation trade.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 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.

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