Search Results for: Sporty’s

The path to becoming a professional pilot has evolved a lot in the past eight years, following the implementation of new regulations and testing guidance governing how pilots of transport-category aircraft obtain certification. While it’s possible to fly professionally with a certificate for commercial single-engine operations, most pilots intending to fly for the airlines, commuter […]

I learned to fly about 25 years ago, and it’s no exaggeration to say it changed my life. I started flight training as a fairly immature teenager and ended it as a confident and independent young adult. I learned a lot about engines and weather, but much more important were the lessons on self-reliance, problem-solving […]

Women in Aviation International announced last week the formation of the Pat Luebke Memorial Scholarship for 2020, following the death of longtime WAI member and former Flying colleague Patricia Luebke on November 22, 2019, after a brief illness. Luebke, born October 9, 1950, worked as a schoolteacher after college, but quickly transitioned to the aviation […]

As glass panels and EFBs become more widely used today, the calculations made by your grandfather on the famed E-6B analog flight computer are now handled with small, handheld electronic flight computers, or even displayed right on your glass panel. Today’s electronic flight computers are loaded with functionality, but there is still a case to […]

Part of preparing for your flight training means making sure you have the right tools with you—whether your day’s learning session involves time in the sim, ground lessons, or a flight. Here, we assemble a representative kit that will outfit you for training, with a selection of ideas from products we’ve tested over the long […]

Learning styles determine what programs work best for you in training—and your instructor can help guide you to the training aids that will correspond to your syllabus and course outline. We’ve found that over the years, the following companies have provided quality aviation training and now deliver that quality in mobile formats—so you can study […]

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of your weather briefing before each flight? Does the wealth of information available from mobile apps and online resources give you the feeling of being more prepared today, compared to calling Flight Service 15 years ago? Or do you find it more […]

To paraphrase a line from The Lone Ranger radio series, “Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear! From out of the past comes the thundering sound of a Cessna 150…Barney flies again.” This goes way back to the olden days—before radio and TV stations employed drones and live traffic cams to report […]

In 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed in the Buffalo, New York, metropolitan area, killing all 49 passengers and crewmembers on board and one person inside the house into which the Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 crashed. The extensive post-crash investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the pilots were completely at fault. The captain […]

There are folks who collect date nails. There is even a publication dedicated to the hobby called Date Nails. What, one might ask, are date nails? These are the 2-inch little fellows which the railroad drove into each of their crossties. There are approximately 800 million crossties in the United States, and each is identified […]