So I’ve been told my airplane engine has two magnetos, but what the heck is a magneto? Well in a reciprocating airplane engine like that of Lycoming IO-360 found in many Cessna 172 aircraft the magnetos are a source of high-voltage electrical energy. This electrical energy is used to produce
…Tag: learn to fly
View All CategoriesYou don’t have to be a mechanic to be a safe pilot, but a knowledge of how your engine works and what the engine instruments are telling you will make it easier to give your engine tender loving care and get long, reliable service from it. Today we’ll cover your
…Effective communication is absolutely critical to your safety and the safety of those in the air around you and on the ground. There’s a well established phraseology and accepted techniques in aviation, so mastering this will be key in your flight training. Take a look at the …
We’re devoting this week’s posts to the VOR, a radio navigation system used worldwide by private and commercial pilots. This introduction comes from The Student Pilot’s Flight Manual, by William Kershner.
The most useful of the enroute radio navigation aids, other than GPS, is the VHF omnirange,
…Coordinated Universal Time, Universal Time Coordinated, Greenwich Mean Time, Zulu Time—I am sure you have heard these terms at some point in your flight training, but what is all of it? To keep it simple these are essentially one in the same: time corrected for seasonal variations in the earth’s rotation
…This week we’ll introduce weight and balance. This post is excerpted from Bob Gardner’s textbook The Complete Private Pilot.
It would be nice to have an airplane in which we could fill all of the seats and all of the baggage area, fuel up to capacity,
…With increasing technologies and access to the internet it may seem to some that a telephone weather briefing is a little outdated. For some it may be, but for others it’s a great opportunity to speak to a weather briefing specialist to learn about the conditions along your route of
…[Update: In December 2022, the FAA published the Aviation Weather Handbook (FAA-H-8083-28) which replaced Aviation Weather (AC 00-6) and Aviation Weather Services (AC 00-45).]
This week, we’re thinking about weather briefings. This post comes from the FAA’s Aviation Weather Services, available from ASA in print, PDF, and in a combo-pak
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