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.
“Brace, brace, brace!” I repeated in my head. Knowing impact was imminent, I crossed my arms, gripped my hands neck-level to the top of my belt straps and dug my chin deep into my chest. I only managed one small, shallow breath before the plane flipped and rushing waters overtook me. My initial reaction was more »
Unexpected circumstances will always be part of flying. From minor inconveniences to full blown emergencies, there is absolutely no way to plan everything well enough to keep out of trouble forever. That said, back when I began flying I had no idea how many complications could be avoided with a more comprehensive approach to flight more »
If you’re a pilot, you’ve probably been there. A busy flight suddenly gets too busy for you to keep up with. At first it’s annoying, but at some point it can become a crisis, or worse. Task saturation happens in many arenas. By definition, it’s the mental bind we find ourselves in when we have more »
Do you want to save hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your flight training? Listen to these four simple words: Look out the window. That is all there is to it. By simply keeping your eyes outside a majority of the time, you will fly better, perfect maneuvers and landings in less time, and more »
From airfactsjournal.com. At its most basic, flying an airplane is a never-ending series of decisions. Is the airplane airworthy? What’s the weather like? Where’s that other airplane going? When should I turn base? Failing to ask these questions and make timely decisions is a serious mistake—one that will earn you a place in an NTSB more »
Hands on, or hands off? That’s a looming question facing general aviation. The NTSB and the FAA are taking increasing notice of the category of stupid pilot tricks called departure from controlled flight, or loss of control, a type of accident that more often than not has fatal results. While the safety of light aircraft more »
Defining winter by the severity of cold weather on the North American continent can be a difficult task. In most years, anything south of a line through Atlanta, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Santa Fe and Los Angeles has a good chance of a modest winter. Any location above 35 degrees north latitude can reasonably expect more »
Climbing through 16,000 for 23,000 feet, it dawned on me that I was feeling weird. It wasn’t sudden or severe, but once it had my attention, hypoxemia was my first thought. Hypo is low or below. A hypodermic needle goes below the dermis, the skin. Ox is oxygen, of course, and emia refers to blood. more »
It can be upsetting, but the attitude of most people, even smart ones (maybe especially smart ones), is that we’re stubbornly resistant to alteration, by the evidence. So here’s a fact about aircraft accidents that’s upsetting and that alters not only some cherished attitudes, but also airman certification standards, some aircraft airworthiness certification standards and more »
Pulleys. Pushrods. Electrical connectors swabbed with stabilant goo. Aircraft have untold connecting points that translate an input to an action. And, as those long-ago games of elementary school “telephone” demonstrated, every time a command moves from one node to the next, there’s potential for corruption or failure. Of all these connection types, one holds an more »
In August the FAA broadly liberalized the rules governing the operation of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS). The changes are fundamental ones, representing an about-face for the agency, which has abruptly dropped both the requirements for small drones to be certificated and for their operators to be licensed pilots. How more »
The concept of a stabilized approach has been around since powered flight began, and likewise, the concept of a non-stabilized approach, as well. The term “stabilized approach” has been common in the airline and commuter worlds, and has eased its way into general aviation language. Once we have a label, we naturally spend two or more »
On a typically clear New England October day in 2006, my friend, Fred, who’s a wonderful pilot but at that point didn’t own an airplane, asked if I could fly his wife to Teterboro from the suburban Boston area where we all live. He would join us. I was a relatively new pilot, and beyond more »
They say the three most useless things to a pilot are runway behind you, fuel not in your tanks, and altitude above you. So when you’re choosing your VFR cruise altitude for your next cross-country, is higher really better? It could be, but you have a lot to consider. Here are five things to think more »
As I stood in front of 15 excited and anxious student pilots in the first meeting of my private pilot ground school class last fall, I started to lose their attention as I kicked off a discussion on navigation tips, tools and techniques. The majority of them didn’t have one hour of flight instruction in more »
Pilots typically wear their skepticism like a badge of honor. Diesel engines are more fuel efficient? I’ll believe it when I see it… Airplane parachutes? It’s a fad! That’s what makes the iPad revolution so surprising. For all their cynicism, pilots have adopted tablets and apps like eager teenagers. Just five years ago, no one more »
We’ve been talking about how to survive our addiction to flying for a long time now, since the beginning of aviation, in fact. We’ve called it Airsense, Headwork, Judgment, Threat and Error Management, and other names not fit to print, but now we have a relatively new label for it: Risk Management. As the FAA more »
Currently, there are two ways to fly without fuel: electric flight, still in its infancy; and soaring, an aeronautical prerogative that requires no fuel at all. The rest of general aviation must learn to manage fuel. By definition, this means some pilots are bound to contribute to the statistic that one in every 20 aviation more »