Flight Training

Flight training syllabi for the Private Pilot, Instrument Rating, Instrument Instructor Refresher, Crew Resource Management, and Part 135 Initial and Recurrent online training courses are the among new courses announced this week by King Schools. The company says its Part 135 training courses are crafted to fit smoothly into operators’ own pre-existing training packages. And […]

The team responsible for the development of Microsoft Flight has been laid off and plans for adding future content have been scuttled, but the free download version of the flight sim will remain available, for now. Critics complained that the flight simulation program lacked extensive terrain and aircraft options and fell short in its support […]

A Senate committee is preparing to vote on FAA Administrator nominee Michael Huerta, who met with AVweb Wednesday at AirVenture and commented on third-class medicals, drones, ADS-B and more. Historically, the administrator’s comments in these sessions are friendly, but cordial and carefully worded, as a matter of course. They generally do not reveal much about […]

photo by Daysi Manzano Click for a larger version Growing up, Daysi Manzano always had to compete with guys.”I remember boys saying, you can’t do it, you’re a girl,” she said. “That’s why I decided to go into mechanical engineering.”Manzano is now a senior at York College’s Aviation Institute and president of the school’s Women […]

After a couple years editing IFR magazine, I sometimes think I’m at least familiar with most kinds of flying backgrounds. The details of each story are rich with differences, but the general themes are familiar. Then something comes in to remind me how little I know. This one came in the old-school, snail-mail way: “I […]

I achieved a degree of fascination and competence with celestial navigation over 50 years ago as an Air Force navigator and recently have found that some of my flying friends have expressed an interest in the basics of this “lost” art, because … well, just because. Here’s a primer for any of you who might […]

Premature cylinder problems are epidemic. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear or read about an aircraft owner having to pull one or several cylinders at annual due to poor compression with leakage past the exhaust valve. More often than not, the afflicted airplane is powered by a fuel-injected TCM engine. The cause […]

One of the hardest parts of flying instruments is making the transition from on-the-gauges to visual flight at the missed approach point. Visual and instrument pilots also have difficulty at times landing in the proper touchdown zone because they’re too fast or too slow on final. One way to make safe, consistent landings, and to […]

This article appeared in Light Plane Maintenance, Oct. 2008. The most important reason to have a multi-probe engine-diagnostic system is the in-flight diagnostic capability that such a system brings. If the pilot knows and understands the system, a multi-probe cylinder head temperature/exhaust gas temperature (CHT/EGT) system can serve as an unparalleled “early warning” device, pinpointing […]

This article originally appeared in IFR Refresher, Oct. 2007. Aviation magazines that talk to instrument pilots seem to focus on the importance of currency as the critical element of a safe flight in the clouds. Here’s a look at some of the building blocks to currency and what happens when they’re ignored. Loss of Scanning […]