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.

September 26, 2016

Anxiety And Pilots
While it’s uncommon in pilots, anxiety is an affliction that doesn’t have to ground you. There are a variety of treatments that can keep you in the cockpit.

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 »
September 22, 2016

Choosing VFR Cruise Altitude
How’s the ride up there? Follow these 5 simple steps for smoother flying

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 »
September 13, 2016

(Learning) Teaching From My Mistakes
How sharing real-world experiences in the cockpit can engage student pilots

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 »
August 1, 2016

More Than Just A Gadget
How The iPad Is Making Flying Safer

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 »
February 1, 2016

Aviation Risk Management, Again, Really?

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 »
January 8, 2016

Thinking Pilot’s Guide To Fuel Management
Your instructor was right. There really is no excuse for running out of fuel.

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 »
December 14, 2015

What’s All The Flap About?
Flaps are so much more than simply those large surfaces hanging from the wing trailing edges

We watched the accident unfold before us from the tall grass, 9,000 feet up in the jagged crest of the Sierra Nevadas.
October 28, 2015

Formation Without Perspiration
Formation flying needn’t be terrifying or dangerous, provided you stay loose

The assignment was simple—fly over to Lubbock, Texas, spend three days with the U.S. Air Force (USAF) basic training squadron at Reese Air Force Base (AFB).
November 5, 2013

Pilots Versus Aviators
Do you pressure the controls or move them?

Everyone reading these words has flown with a lot of other pilots.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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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