Flight Training Posts

September started with an AP story that revealed the cost of airline cockpit automation, atrophied stick and rudder skills. As one might expect, there’s been a lot of comment on both sides of the argument. Some GA types have been, without just…

When I wrote the second edition of Professional Pilot Career Guide a few years back, a great economy was in full swing with many more flying jobs than there were pilots to accept. If it had not been for the economy taking a nosedive  in 2008, the pi…

Given its  more than half century of tradition unimpeded by progress, I’ve always been cynical about the future of general aviation and its life’s blood, the flight training industry that educates new pilots. Then I attended the next-to-…

Few folks I know in the aviation industry doubt the value of social media for making the industry more … well, social. Mike Miley and Rod Rakic at MyTransponder.com have developed an entire Facebook-like enterprise around the entire concept of…

Although most of my AirVenture 2011 time was spent getting the Wittman Airport social media presence up and running at, I did leave a little time for some of the more offbeat kinds of fun to be had around the show.This year’s award for the Be…

Performing missions no other aircraft can accomplish, helicopters are a vital part of the aviation industry. But they are a minority among flying machines, so their presence is often overshadowed by their fixed-wing peers, especially when they gathe…

Any pilot who says an air traffic controller hasn’t saved his or her butt at least once is either lying or stopped flying after solo. Air traffic controllers are my best friends, and you couldn’t pay me enough to attempt their job at any…

Am I the only one who missed the news in July 2010 that the FAA nearly doubled the life of a student pilot certificate (and the third-class medical certificate) for those 40 and younger, from 36 months to 60 months?This discovery came with a questi…

This Saturday morning at 10 AM EST, the earth will move … or stop I guess, whichever is cooler I guess. For me, it means the first time that I’m going to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian at Washington Dulles Airport.I̵…

It’s been an exciting few weeks in the search for Air France 447. In just 20 days or so, searchers located the fuselage and both the cockpit and flight data recorders in 13,000 ft. of water on the floor of the South Atlantic. More victims are …

In the last century, fly-in were about flying. Unlike today’s events, which cater to passive participants there to shop and watch other people fly, the pilots who flew in honed their skills by competing in takeoff and landing contests, flour b…

There is some good news to report as we approach the two year anniversary of the the Air France 447 accident in the South Atlantic during the late evening hours of May 31, 2009. An unmanned submarine exploration team headed by the Woods Hole Oceanog…

Feedback, information on what students have done correctly, where they need work, and how to make the necessary improvements, is key to any educational program. Its quality and value depends on a flight instructor’s ability to immediately meas…

Department of TransportationWashington, DCReally nice to hear from you again and yes, the family are all doing fine, thanks for asking. I forgot to ask you in my last letter how that new government job is working out. DOT Secretary … prett…

The notices arrived in my in-box almost hand in hand.  Analyzing the previous year’s data, the AOPA Air Safety Institute’s Joseph T. Nall Report for 2010 gives the good and bad news about general aviation accidents. And the  2011 Safety…

Let’s be serious. When we fly on the airlines, we’re a captive audience. They can do pretty much whatever they’d like to us and we have to put up with it. But most of the time we also fly on the airlines because we must … for…

Upon reading  the National Association of Flight Instructors’ report on how a recent change in the FAA knowledge test question banks had increased the number of failures, my initial reaction sided with the FAA. Let me explain: When I was with …

Every time I hear someone use the words general aviation and China in the same sentence, I can’t help but think back a few years ago to the early days of the Cessna 162 Skycatcher.Remember the bombshell announcement, when Cessna told the wor…

Using FAA data provided by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s annual Statistical Databook, I’ve built a spreadsheet of pilot population data back to 1964. Updating it for 2010 revealed a new highpoint in pilot certification…

A number of Republican governors have been pegging the media’s popularity meters the past few weeks with talk of pouncing on the collective bargaining rights of public service employees, one of the last havens of solid unionism left in Americ…

Flight instructor pay and benefits are an integral component in creating a flight school faculty that reliably provides an education consistent with the investment made by the students they serve. Unfortunately, flight training is at the bitter end …

A sure indication of age is the change in status of a profession once held in high regard. Embodied by the airline pilot, I’m talking about aviators who gets paid to transport people or cargo on a regular run. Once a respected and well-paid po…

The FAA Safety Hotline is a no-brainer of a customer-service tool built to offer users and aviation industry employees a chance to spill the beans about issues that affect all areas of flying safety. People can leave a name and phone number or t…

Earlier this month President Barack Obama signed the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 into law. For the first time since Vietnam, it will cover flight training under non-degree educational programs.Depending on the…