Flight Training

Editor’s note: FLYING staff writer and CFI Meg Godlewski is an expert on survival techniques for pilots. She wrote the survival chapter of AOPA’s ground school for CFIs. In this two-part series, she counsels pilots on how to avoid the potential disasters of an unscheduled, off-airport landing, as well as how you can survive if […]

The National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI) has inducted legendary CFIs John King, Martha King, and Greg Brown, into its Hall of Fame. The ceremony took place at the National Business Aviation Association Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) last week in Las Vegas, Nevada. NAFI director of program development and administrator of the Hall […]

A Melbourne, Florida, flight school may have unknowingly flown seven unairworthy flights after a former employee allegedly hacked into the facility’s computer system, according to police documents. Lauren Lide, 26, was arrested and booked by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office on October 9, according to the sheriff’s website. She had worked at Melbourne Flight Training […]

“In instrument training, if you’re not doing something, you’re missing something,” Chris said. Chris was my new instructor, assigned to me for my instrument training. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, until one quiet night we were flying along, and the instructions from the air traffic controller, who called out numbers like […]

Teaching someone to fly can be a life-altering experience on the same level as teaching someone to read, swim, or ride a bike. All these skills increase a person’s confidence and give them a sense of freedom. But as anyone who has been through the flight training process will tell you, learning to fly is […]

What was it that attracted you to the world of sky travel? Did you have a fascination with aircrafts as a child or were you introduced to flying later in life? Most of the female pilots I’ve met were introduced to aviation by a man in their lives, like a dad, brother, or partner. My […]

Flight training is hard—I mean really hard. I suppose it is meant to be hard: Passengers depend on their pilots to be knowledgeable and confident so they can land the airplane in any circumstance. In the same vein, many passengers are familiar with the technical aspects of flight training, but they don’t realize the hardest […]

Holograms, used for decades in the entertainment industry, may soon become part of the aviation training environment thanks to a team of students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott. The students are part of ERAU’s Simulation Science, Games and Animation program. Over the summer, the student team developed augmented-reality (AR) holograms, creating 3D models of the […]

Becoming a flight instructor was the very last thing on my to-do list. If we’re being completely honest, very few pilots decide to do so on their own. So how did I find myself in this position? In 2009, Colgan 3407, a Continental Airlines passenger flight, crashed into a house after an aerodynamic stall. The […]

If you didn’t fly into KDCA—now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport—before September 11, 2001, you’re still out of luck as a general aviation pilot. You’ll need to be crew on an airline flight, or obtain a special clearance, in order to land at the nation’s iconic airport on the banks of the Potomac River. That’s […]