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Ask a student pilot what skills are needed to be a pilot and he might say steep turns, stalls, and landings. Ask a commercial pilot and he may say chandelles, lazy eights, and accuracy landings. However, once the ink is dry on the newly won certificate, what are the true skills needed to be a […]

By: Steven Daun, National Chief Pilot You have decided to earn your private pilot certificate. The first half of your training is going well, and you just soloed. Now it is time to get ready for the next step in your training. The solo cross country. This article will discuss what you need to do […]

By Steven Daun, National Chief Pilot We see many students come through our doors each year to earn their private pilot certificates. The majority of these students continue on to earn their instrument rating. However, when we speak with people who received their private pilot certificates years ago or from other schools, the story is […]

By Steven Daun, National Chief Pilot My aviation career started in the ’80s. This was before the smartphone and iPad era. We were fortunate enough to have a flight service station at our airport. Most of the time, rather than calling the FSS, we visited the office. The briefer would print out the weather charts […]

By: Mike Bliss Every discipline has its own unique set of terms, whether they are slang, acronyms, or phrases. Aviation is no different. There are even subsets of the aviation language. For example, each military branch has its own terms and some have even migrated to general aviation. For example, using the term, “no joy” […]

By: Steven Daun, National Chief Pilot It does not take long during primary flight training to realize that a pilot needs to adapt their mindset when flying into different airports. Controlled and uncontrolled airports are typically the primary difference. But each of those can be further divided into “busy” and “not busy.” So how does […]

By: Steven Daun, National Chief Pilot Winter is here and with it comes significant variation in the weather. It is important to note that when we discuss “winter weather” we are not just speaking about it being cold outside. Winter weather encompasses many different topics. For this article, we are going to focus on temperature. […]