Proficiency

Our pilot training articles are designed to help you improve your flying proficiency. Bone up on beneficial skills as well as the biggest mistakes to avoid as a pilot. Fly right with articles on topics such as dealing with ice and the most dangerous things you can do as a pilot.

April 15, 2019

When Training Turns Lethal
The safest kind of flying, statistically at least, has its own hazards. Here’s how to wrap your head around the risk and keep your sunny side up.

When it comes to high-risk flight, we usually think VFR into IMC, low-level maneuvering or run-ins with thunderstorms. Rightly so, too. Those scenarios, along with the ever-present villain “loss of control” lurking nearby, are the riskiest in flying. Training, on the other hand, is, statistically speaking, the safest aviating you can do this side of more »
April 8, 2019

Why Deferred Maintenance Could Cost You Big Bucks
While it feels as though it’s saving money by putting off the repair or fixing it little by little, in the long run, in most cases it drives up the cost.

As an aviation community, we make a lot of noise about getting a good pre-buy inspection and thoroughly reviewing aircraft logbooks before making the leap into aircraft ownership. But can we say the same about encouraging our fellow owner/pilots to be meticulous in maintaining their planes? We do an even worse job of educating new more »
March 6, 2019

Adding A Helicopter Rating: The Good And Bad Of Airplane Muscle Memory
An airplane rating would make learning this machine a breeze. Or so it seemed on the first date
Robinson R22

There is a subtle yet profound difference between the learning of something and the knowing of that thing. You can learn by reading, but you don’t begin to know until you begin to try to do. Part One of this three-part series ended with my first sustained “controlled” hover—nothing steady or rock solid about it, more »
February 21, 2019

Automation In Aircraft Can Kill, When It’s Not Saving Your Life, That Is
There are life-saving lessons for us light airplane flyers from the recent crash of a Boeing 737 Max. What they are and why we need to learn them, now.

There are life-saving lessons for us light airplane flyers from the recent crash of a Boeing 737 Max. What they are and why we need to learn them, now.

February 13, 2019

Drones in our Airspace
There’s no avoiding it. A big part of our future is remotely piloted. What does it mean to GA as a whole and to you and your risk of midair collision?
Drone photography

There’s no avoiding it. A big part of our future is remotely piloted. What does it mean to GA as a whole and to you and your risk of midair collision?
January 24, 2019

Circle-to-Land Life-Saving Tips
For one, fly wider circles, up to a point. Here's how to find the balance.
Cicle-to-Land

For one, fly wider circles, up to a point. Here’s how to find the balance.
January 17, 2019

VFR At Night
There’s no difference between flying in daylight and flying at night—except you can’t see anything.
Flying at night

There’s no difference between flying in daylight and flying at night—except you can’t see anything. So goes the sage advice from my old flight instructor, and he’s essentially right. The airplane doesn’t know or care that its pilot is visually impaired during the hours of darkness. It performs and responds just as it does in more »
January 3, 2019

Adding A Helicopter Rating: Getting To Know The Beast
The first step in learning to fly helicopters, a lifelong dream of one pilot, was learning to hover. But would that first step also be his last?
Robinson R22

I was bewildered during preflight and startup—vaguely familiar but with way more steps that I didn’t fully understand—couldn’t yet correlate. I was sure that once we got going—got airborne—I’d be at home. After all, I’d been flying airplanes for many years. This was my introductory flight lesson for the rotor wing add-on rating to my more »
December 11, 2018

When Pilots Get Vectored Across Final
It’s not supposed to happen, but it does. What to do when the controller forgets about you.
Night alignment with runway

Fly IFR, and you’ll run into this situation soon enough: You’re on a base-leg vector to the localizer or inbound course. This means you’re perpendicular to the final approach course—the course that takes you to the runway—and the next heading you receive from ATC should result in a 20- to 30-degree intercept to that final more »
November 12, 2018

Loss Of Control: Spins Or Spirals?
The latter can look a lot like the former, especially when all there is to see is the aftermath.

The latter can look a lot like the former, especially when all there is to see is the aftermath.
November 1, 2018

Becoming A Creature of Habit (Well, Good Habits, Anyway)
Developing good habits is critical for our flying. So why is it that so few of us are any good at it?

It’s often said that habits get started early in life and stick with us. Unfortunately, that’s true for habits both good and bad. So it’s important to develop good habits early and nurture them while learning how to keep from picking up bad habits along the way. If you’re a pilot, you understand how fundamental more »
September 12, 2018

Battling Crosswinds
Crosswinds can be tricky, so take some time to arm yourself with the knowledge you need.

Subscribe today to Plane & Pilot magazine for industry news, reviews and much more delivered straight to you! Land being the valuable commodity that it is, it’s becoming more and more difficult to find an airport offering a choice of runway directions—other than the two alternate ends of a single strip of pavement. And so, more more »
August 23, 2018

Flying in the High Country Requires Different Skills
Flying in the high country provides its own set of challenges to pilots. Here are a few basics to know.

Subscribe today to Plane & Pilot magazine for industry news, reviews and much more delivered straight to you! My home is located on a public use airport in a Colorado mountain valley at an elevation of 8,300 feet. When I step out my front door, I can count seven peaks within seven miles that top 14,000 more »
June 26, 2018

How Temporary Are CFIs?
The need for airline pilots is reshaping how new pilots are learning to fly

Are you an aviation enthusiast or pilot? Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! Not too long ago, there wasn’t much hiring going on at the airlines. Many pilots interested in airline jobs took flight instructing positions and kept them for a while, building hours well beyond the 1,500 hours total time more »
May 17, 2018

Maximizing the Flight Review
Take maximum advantage of this low-risk chance to sharpen your skills.

Are you an aviation enthusiast or pilot? Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and much more! Flight reviews come to all of us every couple of years, if not supplanted by an equally rigorous evaluation and training requirement. Under Federal Aviation Regulation 61.56(c), no person may act as pilot in command unless a more »
May 16, 2018

The Secret Code Of Controllers
Five things the tower tells you to do that don't seem to make much sense, and why they say them.

Are you an aviation enthusiast or pilot? Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and more! It’s a given that air traffic controllers like to talk. I mean, why else would we have chosen this career? I like to talk, and to my credit, most pilots hear what I say. But the question is, more »

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