Flight Training Posts

Most pilots know that the test of an airplane’s dynamic stability is to trim for a specific hands-off speed, increase or decrease pitch to a faster or slower speed, then let go of the stick and measure the time it takes to resume the hands-off…

As Baby Boomers march into retirement in increasing numbers, there’s an opportunity for general aviation and its surviving participants to recalibrate their desires and define the future of personal flight. It all hinges on flying clubs, which…

Sometimes the best action is to take none, which is precisely the route I chose last week when many people were falling over themselves to tell outgoing Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood how much they appreciated his past four years on the job.…

Oh, the irony of progress.In 2005, the FAA issued its first Safety Alert for Operators, “an information tool that alerts, educates, and makes recommendations to the aviation community [that] includes air carrier certificate holders, fractiona…

In discussing a wide range of subjects starting with flight training, much has been said about the dilatory and disaffecting consequences of aviation’s financial requirements. But in order of importance, money must follow time, a finite resour…

There’s no denying that flying clubs make aviation affordable by sharing the fixed costs of airplane operation among a number of people. Active pilots are the obvious benefactors, as are lapsed pilots looking for a way to resume flying. In foc…

At the risk of garnering the wrath of my buddy Scott Spangler who wondered here last week whether technology was really making us more goon-like than aviator, I present yet another piece of technology. This one functions much like a Swiss Army Knife…

When he passes through town, a friend, a long-time CFI and designated pilot examiner, calls so we can catch up over coffee. Like many people today, pilots or not, an iPad seems permanently attached to my friend. Curious, I asked how many applicants …

The day after Thanksgiving, Sporty’s Academy shared news of a week that any flight school would love to have, four first solos, two new private pilots, two new commercial pilots, and a new flight instructor. The cooperation of Mother Nature ma…

Beyond the kids, one of the pleasures of substitute teaching at Omro High School is talking with its principal, Brett Steffen. Infected in adulthood, he’s got a chronic case of aviation passion. I like it when he stops by during my student-fre…

One of the first things I learned as a graduate student at Northwestern’s Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) program 20 years ago and years later as a teacher in that same program was the value of a brand. Managing a brand is so import…

Given the rapid pace of change in cockpit technology, it’s really sad in a self-destructive way at how slowly change has come to the training paradigm that puts new pilots in those cockpits. With few exceptions, the way an instructor educates …

Those with a proclivity for cynicism might judge this headline an oxymoron equal to military intelligence. But before you snigger and stop reading, consider this:  under its Center of Excellence banner, the FAA has selected a team of universities wi…

Certainly more details about its new Center to Advance the Pilot Community will be broadcast during October’s AOPA Aviation Summit in Palm Springs, but that doesn’t satisfy my need to know now. Ah, curiosity is an impatient task master, …

Less than a decade ago, when the symptom’s of aviation’s decline were firmly manifested, a number of aviation’s alphabet organizations focused mostly on increasing their slice of a shrinking pie. With the number of active pilots an…

Discussing the dismal number of student starts in the 1990s, my Flight Training magazine coworkers and I wondered how flight schools located where the nonflying public congregate, like shopping malls, might fare. Learning about two new aviation educ…

At every turn, it seemed that everyone at EAA AirVenture 2012 had an Apple iPad, except me and one or two others. Aviation apps were hot items this year, and several of them would make effective, essential tools for pilots in training.First up is J…

With its huge, preselected aviation audience, EAA AirVenture is the ultimate dog-and-pony stage on which many companies debut new hardware and software. Significant this year are new airplanes that offer a good balance between price and performance,…

Since I started attending EAA AirVenture professionally, as an exhibitor in 1989, and then an employee, and now as a journalist, my greatest joy is covering the site from the North 40 to ultralights, and just letting what’s new rise up and gra…

Boeing released its periodic Pilot & Technician Outlook at Farnborough on July 11. In hours the global media started producing stories of future doom because of the shortage and said that the new pilots trained over the next 20 years would be le…

With  no demands or duties, I retired to the deck on Father’s Day to reflect on my life’s journey, to appreciate the good times and bad that are its waypoints. A caressing breeze ebbed and flowed from the west like wind waves on the sky&…

I’ve been dreading this summer … for the first time in my life though actually. That’s because next month the final French BEA report on the Air France 447 crash will be released.Most professional pilots have a pretty good idea wh…

The Icon A5’s spin resistance show & tellWhen I hit the play button on this video, I was ready to pounce on every syllable of marketing hyperbole. Instead of half-told truths, I got a concise, comprehensive show & tell on what make…

Taking “A fresh look at the many roles General Aviation Airport play in the National Air Transportation System,” the FAA recently released the 34-page report of its in-depth, 18-month study of roughly 3,000 airports, General Aviation Air…