If you hear a repeating "dit-dah-dah-dit" (the letter "P" in Morse code) on 121.5 MHz, what kind of device is transmitting the signal?
Trivia Testers : Good News, Bad News
Abort, Abort! — and How to Avoid It (Part 3)
Aborting a takeoff can be as uneventful as simply reducing power and rolling to a stop. It may even take the form of noting a problem during your engine run-up, and never taxiing onto the runway at all. A takeoff abort may require a quick "chop" of the throttles at rotation speed, or even a few feet in the air over the runway. In the worst case a takeoff abort may have to begin at a point where you can't come to a stop on the remaining runway.
Decision Training for Pilots — Cross Country
Flying away from the friendly confines of your home airport offers another great flying challenge. It also offers an unlimited number of "what if" scenarios. When the airlines use "LOFT" scenarios, they are always playing out a flight going to somewhere (LOFT is Line Oriented Flight Training -- Line, as in flight line or route). Creative instructors and inquisitive students can "war game" cross counties forever. Here is just one and it's a true story.
You Can’t Get There From Here: On Going (and Being) Direct
Whenever we fly from point A to point B, many of us use the Victor airway system, and we pick a route that offers us the smallest increase beyond a great circle distance, or the highest groundspeed ... and these days, perhaps the widest berth from unfriendly airspace. In addition, particularly in the IFR world, there's often more to it.
Trivia Testers : Curious Names of Remarkable People
To the nearest 100 feet, estimate the takeoff distance into a 13 knot headwind for an airplane with a 52-knot takeoff speed where, based on current conditions of temperature, pressure, runway surface, slope, etc., the no-wind takeoff distance is given as being 1000 feet. Then estimate that distance with a 13-knot tailwind.
Just One Moment’s Distraction
IT WAS ALL OVER IN A FLASH, literally in the blink of an eye. The airplane was trashed and a deer laid dead on the taxiway, half-butchered by the propeller of the now-blood-covered plane. How this happened is the sad story of a distracted pilot, the proclivities of nature, and just a bad combination of circumstances...
Running the Numbers
In some ways VFR flying can be more challenging than flying under instrument flight rules. Apart from the subtle logistics of reading instruments, knowing where you are, and controlling where you're going, IFR flying is almost entirely built upon procedures and doing what you're told.
Decision Training for Pilots — Flight with reference to instruments
You do not have to be an Instrument Flight Instructor (CFII) to give instrument flight instruction? No, the only time a CFII certificate is required is when a person is training for the instrument rating. Initial instructors give instrument training all the time.
Trivia Testers : Where the Force Started
Galileo notwithstanding, with raindrops, the bigger they are, the faster they fall. (For objects of that size, the surface area to volume ratio dictates the extent to which it will overcome air resistance and viscous drag as it falls. Larger drops have a greater terminal velocity.) But when a raindrop falls faster than about 18 miles per hour (in still air) what will usually happen?
Great Expectations
The number of our landings must always equal our number of takeoffs -- or so goes the adage -- but sometimes the safest way to ensure equality is to do neither. Unlike birds possessing the gift of flight and whose skills are instinctive, we have the gift of thought, but our skills are hard won.