Piloting

Everyone knows that pilots and the aviation world in general love acronyms. This is especially true regarding weather, where international standards mean everything has an acronym or abbreviation. Such is the case with the METAR, which stands for Meteorological Terminal Air Report. But what it stands for is less important than what it is—a simple,

Have you ever heard the terms “flying at the edge of the envelope” or “pushing the envelope”? Ever wonder what envelope they refer to? The flight envelope is a graphic representation of the conditions where you can safely fly an aircraft. When a pilot “pushes the envelope,” they are at the limits of what the

Most people have heard of the solo flight during flight training. But it isn’t until you start learning to fly that you fully appreciate just how much stuff you have to grasp before you can do it completely on your own. Your first solo flight is a big occasion–the first big milestone in your training.

For most pilots, the most difficult part of flying is executing a safe landing. To help you, there are several tools you can use, the Visual Descent Point, or VDP, is one of them. But what exactly is it, and how can you use it? The Visual Descent Point (VDP) is a point that tells

The numbers vary from year to year and from flight school to flight school, but it is generally said that about 80 percent of students pilots drop out before they get their pilots licenses. So what happens to those 80 percent of students? The reasons students succeed or fail at flight training are varied. Everyone

If you’ve ever spent any time around airports, especially General Aviation ones, you’ll probably have noticed aircraft come into land, briefly touch the runway before taking off once again. This maneuver is known as touch & go landing. A rapid combination of two maneuvers, a touch & go landing involves the landing and immediate take-off

Have you ever been on an airline flight that did a go-around? Chances are quite a few passengers were freaked out by the experience as the plane seemed like it was making a normal landing, but the pilot suddenly put it into a power climb. It provides the pilot a way of abandoning a landing

Pilot training and testing are unlike the exams most people remember from school. The closest experience most people have is when they get their driver’s license. To get your driver’s license, you usually have to sit for a multiple-choice written exam and then get in the car with an examiner and drive around the neighborhood.

One of the most misunderstood jobs in aviation is that of the DPE—the Designated Pilot Examiner. For many student pilots, the DPE that gives their checkride and (hopefully) hands them a license is the first contact they have with the “real” FAA. The problem with that is that DPEs do not actually work for the

Flight physicals can be a source of anxiety for many pilots. For example, should you list your anxiety about a flight physical as a medical condition? However, flight physicals can be straightforward, and any issues found don’t have to be the end of the story. A flight physical is a generic term used to describe