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I remember walking out to do the required spin training for my CFI rating in a Cessna 150 or 152. I told my instructor I was a bit nervous. She said, "Why are you nervous?" "Well," I told her, "all the spins I have done were started above 20,000 feet, and I had a parachute and an ejection...

The most practical thing to do after passing the private checkride is to start instrument training. If you are strictly VFR, there will be many times when weather will make your travel difficult or impossible, or worse yet, make you take unnecessary risks. Many times, we have observed people...

All of the training requirements for Sport Pilot can be used later to help qualify for additional training to become a Private Pilot. So, there is no downside to getting the Sport Pilot certificate and perhaps deciding later to upgrade to a Private Pilot certificate.

Usually, the procedure is to listen to the ATIS for weather, which often includes instructions such as "VFR departures contact Clearance Delivery with route of flight and requested altitude." So, yes, I'd contact Clearance with those details, and then call Ground for taxi clearance. I don't...

When you complete the online course, and pass the exam, you will get the endorsement to take the knowledge exam. You don't need it from any other CFI, it's included with the course.

I am A+ and they usually love me. There is a swamp behind our property. Last year we hired the Mosquito Squad to treat our property, and it made an amazing difference. We renewed this year. They spray six times a summer, and we rarely see a mosquito, in spite of the swamp nearby.

Of course, it is not summer south of the equator.

Well, I have never had to show anyone my high school diploma or my college degree. I have occasionally had to show my pilot certificates for insurance purposes.

The very first fatality at Oshkosh during the EAA convention was an airframe failure. Dewey Bryant of Michigan's Upper Peninsula had an airplane he designed called the "Bryant Roadable." It was designed to have the wings folded up so it could be driven on the surface like a car. Unfortunately...

I am thinking about that "50% crosswind." Do you mean 50 degrees? If you mean 50%, then I would interpret that to be a 45-degree crosswind, since 100% would be 90 degrees. There's a significant difference, of course, since a 90-degree crosswind at 24 knots would be far more challenging.

OK, but the inbound traffic is likely at pattern altitude, and the early turn is probably much, much lower unless it turns quite a bit farther that the plane on the 45 degree entry. Of course, it always depends on the performance of the aircraft.

There is no autopilot in this aircraft. The pilot has his hands on his knees (and no, I am not touching the controls). Yet he is on course (see the HSI), on altitude, and perfectly trimmed. And get this - the guy flying does not have a pilot certificate.

There is a plug in GPS called Bad Elf that should work with your iPad. Not terribly expensive. But make sure it is compatible. The one I have has the Apple lightning connector.

I met him on the Cayman Caravan in 2001. Very nice guy. He was in our launch group out of Key West, but I didn't understand why - we were flying an A-36.

Yes, you can order charts online from several vendors or print them from a website. We teach our students how to flight plan using sectional charts, the E6B and telephone briefings, as it has been done for years. But we also encourage them to get an electronic app and learn how to use that as...

We don't really make much money training student pilots. We make money pumping fuel. More pilots = more fuel sold. There's no need to "milk" them. Get them out the door with a certificate and hopefully get them into an airplane that we can fuel now and them. And Pinecone is correct, there...

On one flight in a C-130, our mission was to search for a missing F-111 lost somewhere east or north of Grand Island, Louisiana, its last known position. We were assigned a 30-mile grid in Mississippi. After taking off from Little Rock, we flew an instrument approach to Natchez to get below...

True. At the end of my Air Force pilot training, I took the commercial knowledge exam and received a commercial certificate with SEL, MEL (limited to centerline thrust), and instruments. I have only taken two civilian checkrides - SES and CFI.

Got the rating a long time ago, but only get to use it about once a year when we get together at Cadillac, Michigan the weekend before AirVenture. This year the airplane was down for maintenance, and we postponed the event until next year.

We grade each part of a lesson as follows: A - exceeds standards. B - meets standards. C - needs improvement. If a maneuver is demonstrated, we mark it as a D. In addition to the grade, we usually make notes explaining the reason for anything that needs improvement.