Search Results for: maintaining your airplane

Learn how to use this information resource to your advantage.

Flying a reliable but legacy-equipped airplane, you’re looking for a way to make it into Tucker-Guthrie Memorial Airport, Harlan, Kentucky, (I35) with an IFR flight plan ending with a visual approach, or just VFR. It’s a long way from home in the flatlands of central Illinois—a one state to the southeast—but a 50-gallon getaway is […]

Pilots have a general sense of who is on the other end of the radio, but controllers have a different internal name for the position they are working. While hearing but one or occasionally two voices on frequency, who else is standing there and watching what’s going on? There is more than one voice behind […]

One the things every primary student learns somewhere along the way to their certificate is the difference between primary and secondary flight controls. Distinguishing between them isn’t hard: The primary flight controls are ailerons/spoilers for roll, an elevator/stabilator/canard for pitch and some kind of rudder for yaw. Those are the controls we regularly manipulate to […]

While pilots and air traffic controllers work with each other daily, perhaps we don’t often think about the nitty-gritty details and problem-solving taking place on the other side. When everything appears to be running smoothly, there’s nothing to worry about, right? If I’m your controller for the moment and tell you, “Proceed direct [FIX],” it’s […]

Building a kit airplane may be easier and less expensive than you think.

Going up against the clock meant planning was crucial.

As time marches on, so do advancements to many of the aircraft we are fortunate enough to fly. When I did my initial instrument training, I remember the high-workload events like setting up and briefing approaches, talking to ATC and running the checklists, all while hand-flying the aircraft on steam gauges. It was an exercise […]

Cub, champ, maintenance, aging aircraft, inspections, 100 hour, annual, non-destructive testing, NDT

Keep these variables in mind when figuring out the cost of a private pilot license.