Learn to Fly 2020

Because you are reading this special issue of Flying, you’re probably considering taking flying lessons. As someone who has been in your shoes, permit me to give you an invitation… and a warning. Fifty years ago, Flying gave me an invitation that completely changed my life. On a September evening at a drugstore newsstand after […]

Every pilot takes a unique path in learning to fly, based on circumstances, location, access—and just plain luck, in certain cases. You’ll make a positive approach, though, because you’ve identified a resource in Flying that lays out the path for you by considering where you’re starting, where you’d like to go and these key steps […]

Just as any goal worth pursuing takes honest effort to accomplish, so does learning to fly. The effort takes the shape of time and money invested—of which we all have only limited amounts. In order to properly budget both, so you can achieve the goal of flight, you need an understanding of what to expect. […]

A flight school (otherwise known as an aviation training organization) conducts the business of teaching people to fly. It can take on a variety of guises, from the small, traditional flight school at a local airport using a light aircraft or two all the way to those international ATOs that train pilots for the airlines—and […]

There are a few moments in life that are truly memorable. It might be the day you held your first driver’s license, a crazy party to celebrate your 21st birthday, your very first kiss or the birth of a child. For most pilots, the first flight lesson is an experience that will trigger the limbic […]

Learning to fly most any aircraft requires you to work one-on-one with a professional pilot called a certificated flight instructor—which refers to the FAA credentials that this person must hold. You may have worked closely with an instructor when you learned to drive, scuba dive, ride a horse or any number of similar activities, so […]

So you’ve started flight training, but it’s just not working the way you expected. You’ve got a sinking feeling that you and your flight instructor just aren’t communicating like you should—or you have a downright distaste for spending any time at all with this person who is serving as a primary mentor in your aviation […]

If you’ve talked with pilots who acquired their initial tickets before 2015—and especially those who learned to fly in the 1970s, ’80s or ’90s—you may find they refer to the knowledge exam with a certain amount of disdain. “Just get it over with.” “It’s a multiple-guess test.” “It doesn’t apply to real flying.” They come […]

Both new and experienced pilots wonder how they’ll know for sure when they’ve identified the best headset. Matt Ruwe, a senior product manager at Bose, has a rather simple answer. “A great headset is the one you don’t even notice you’re wearing,” he says. “There are a few things in aviation that can really influence […]

Flying may be a dream you’ve had since childhood, or maybe it represents a new challenge later in life waiting to be conquered. You know it will be exhilarating to enjoy the freedom general aviation will give you, but you may think the cost of such freedom is out of reach. While the privileges that […]