You 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
…Tag: Private Pilot
View All CategoriesAccording to FAA research and safety reports there are three distinct types of communication errors:
An absence of a pilot readback. The pilot merely acknowledges the clearance that he/she in actuality misunderstood.
A Readback/hearback error. When a pilot reads back a clearance incorrectly and the controller fails to catch the
…VORs are anything but standard. When operating under the guidance of radio navigational aids like a VOR it’s important to understand the restrictions and standard service volumes (SSV) associated with each aid of intended use. VOR standard service volumes are designated in three classes: Terminal (T), Low Altitude (L), and
…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,
…Understanding the imaginary grid we’ve laid out around and across our planet is key in flight planning and ultimately your safety. Today, we’ll review some of the basics with help from the FAA textbook Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge.
The equator is an imaginary circle equidistant from
…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,
…[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
…New FAA Knowledge Exams were released February 9. The Private Pilot test saw the most significant changes this test cycle. Questions being deleted covered outdated topics including automatic direction finder/nondirectional beacon (ADF/NDB); Radar Summary Charts; the En Route Flight Advisory Service (EFAS); medevac; and transcribed weather broadcasts (TWEB). The FAA
…