Training

After completing several flights, it’s clear that the decision to train much closer to home at First Landings Aviation, Orlando-Apopka, was a sound one. Florida’s temperamental thunderstorms have arrived and the proximity has allowed me to reschedule canceled flights easily. And I’m really enjoying flying an LSA and the more flexible training environment. The Remos […]

A lot has changed with my training since my last blog. I had a successful Lesson 8, which was inspiring after the Lesson 7 letdown, and I was eager for the next flight. But my subsequent lessons kept getting canceled due to weather or last-minute work-related issues and the weeks between flights just kept ticking […]

June 2010 I HAD HEARD THE NAME REDBIRD Flight Simulations before, but it wasn’t until I got a call from my former Meridian instructor, Bill Inglis, who told me that he was buying a pair of Redbird full-motion simulators for his flight-training company, that I took the opportunity to learn more about the sim maker. […]

June 2010 NOT ALL THAT long ago even the best full-motion jet simulators had very basic visual presentations that were restricted to nothing more than a view straight ahead through the windshield. Most simulators had a television-style screen mounted in each pilot’s windshield, and you couldn’t really see anything except the display on your side. […]

May 2010 — We asked two nationally recognized experts in flight training to weigh in on the effectiveness of “accelerated” flight training — those weekend, 10-day or short-term immersion courses that offer flight ratings in short periods of time. Their opinions differed somewhat — John King is a more unabashed fan of accelerated learning than […]

For decades pilots of light airplanes have practiced flying instruments using only what we called a “partial panel,” meaning that several crucial instruments were not operating. Being able to control the airplane in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) without all of the primary instruments functioning is absolutely crucial because a loss of control in the clouds […]

Though I thoroughly enjoyed being the guest of US Airways, after two tiring sessions in its simulators, I was ready for a break. The Boeing 757 and 737 had been fun and, for the most part, understandable to me. I had survived assorted V1 cuts and wind shear in both airplanes and was pretty well […]

April 2010 Flying cross-country by visual flight rules is a far less precise endeavor than flying IFR (see Robert Goyer’s IFR Flight Prep: A Whole New Game April 2010 article for more info). As a former Navy fighter pilot turned GA pilot once put it, VFR flight consists of “sniff-checking your way through weather” –– […]

April 2010 LIKE A LOT OF PILOTS who learned instrument flying in the mid ’90s, I got my ticket as new technology was just beginning to show up in the cockpits of small airplanes. Not that it did me much good at the time. My instrument training at FlightSafety Academy, then in Lakeland, Florida, was […]

THE WORDS “PLEASE CALL this phone number after you land” strike terror into the heart of any pilot. Sometimes the bad news comes in the form of a letter from the FAA. However it arrives, it is no fun to learn that you are being charged with an airborne deviation from the FARs. Despite some […]