Medical

There are three different classes of medicals that you can get.

• First class
• Is for ATP's
• Good for 12 calender months under 40 years of age
• Good for 6 calender months over 40 years of age
• Second class
• Commercial pilot
• Good for 12 calender months
• Third class
• Private pilot
• Good for 60 calender months if under 40 years of age
• Good for 24 calender months if over 40 years of age

If you are a student pilot wanting to become a airline pilot or something that requires a first class medical, you should go ahead and get a first class before you even start your training. The last thing you want to have happen is you spend hundreds of thousands for your licenses, just to find out that you cannot get a first class, because you have something wrong. Your first class will turn into a second class after 6 months, then will turn into a third class 6 months later.

Instrument Study Guide

• Three fundamental skills of Instrument flying
• Instrument scan
• Interpretation of instruments
• Aircraft control
• Instrument scan techniques
• Rectangular
• Selective radial (hub and spoke)
• inverted V
• Three common error
• Fixation
• Omission
• Emphasis
• Common rules of thumb for aircraft control
• Lead level of by 10% of VSI
• 100 RPM = 5 KTS (for a 172)
• 100 RPM = 100 Feet Per Min. ( for 172)
• Lead roll out 1/2 of bank ahead
• Two types of flight instruments
• Pitot-static
• Airspeed
• Altimeter
• VSI
• Gyroscopic
• Directional gyro (D.G.
• Artificial horizon
• Turn coordinator (D.C. electric)
• Distance Measuring Equipment (DME)
• Uses slant-range to find distance
• Automatic Direction Finder (ADF)
• In the aircraft
• Non-Directional Beacon (NDB)
• On the ground
• Instrument Landing System (ILS)
• Four parts
• Localizer
• Glide slope
• Marker beacons
• Approach lighting system
• Marker beacon substitution
• Outer marker
• Cross radial
• DME
• GPS
• Compass locator
• Middle marker
• Compass locator
• Precision radar
• GPS
• No service volumes
• Direct navigation
• Modes
• En route
• Greater than 30 nm. 5nm = full scale
• Terminal
• Within 30 nm. 1nm. = full scale
• Approach
• 2 nm. prior to final approach fix 0.3 nm = full scale
• Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS)
• Increases accuracy and reliability of GPS
• Approach with Vertical Guidance (APV)
• En route
• Greater than 30 nm. 2 nm. = full scale
• Terminal
• Within 30 nm. 1 nm. = full scale
• Approach
• 2 nm. prior to final approach fix 0.1 nm. = full scale
• VOR (service volumes)
• Terminal
• 1,000 - 12,000 feet = 25 nm.
• Low
• 1,000 - 18,000 feet = 40 nm.
• High
• 1,000 - 14,500 feet = 40 nm.
• 14,501 - 18,000 feet = 100 nm.
• 18,001 - 45,000 feet = 130 nm.
• 45,001 - 60,000 feet = 100 nm.
• NDB (service volumes)
• Compass locator
• 15 nm.
• Medium homing
• 25 nm.
• Homing
• 50 nm.
• High homing
• 75 nm.
• Air speeds
• I - Indicated (what is shown on your instrument)
• C - Calibrated (corrected for positional error of pitot tube)
• E - Equivalent (corrected for compressibility)
• T - True (corrected for temperature and pressure)
• G -  Ground (speed across the ground)
• Altitudes
• Indicated (what is shown on your instrument)
• Pressure (29.92)
• Density (corrected for temperature)
• Absolute (height above ground (AGL))
• True (actual height above sea level (MSL))
• Holding procedures
• Types of hold entry
• Parallel
• Tear-drop
• Direct
• Hold briefing
• Fuel status
• Name of fix
• Direction of hold
• Altitude
• Inbound course
• Type of entry
• Initial outbound heading
• Wind correction
• Wind correction
• 2 seconds for every knot of headwind (for a 172 at 100 kts)
• Holding speeds
• Below 6,000 feet
• 200 knots
• 6,001 - 14,000 feet
• 230 knots
• Above 14,000 feet
• 265 knots
• Low En route Chart
• Minimum En route Altitude (MEA)
• provides navaid reception and obstacle clearance
• Minimum Obstruction Clearance Altitude (MOCA)
• Obstruction clearance able to descend within 22 nm. of navaid
• Off Route Obstruction Clearance Altitude (OROCA)
• Obstruction clearance off airways
• Minimum Crossing Altitude (MCA)
• Guarantees obstacle clearance and navaid reception
• Minimum Reception Altitude (MRA)
• Guarantees reception
• Minimum Sector Altitude (MSA)
• Guarantees 1000 foot of terrain clearance in non-mountainous 2000 foot in mountainous
• Minimum Vectoring Altitude (MVA)
• Radar vectors for ATC 500 foot above
• National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
• Accident
• Substantial aircraft damage, fatal, or serious injury
• Substantial
• affect flight characteristics
• Serious injury
• Hospital within 48 hours, broken bones, organ damage, 2nd or 3rd degree burns on 5% of body, and tendon or ligament damage
• Fatal
• Die within 30 days
• Incident
• anything other that an accident
• Immediate notification of ATC
• flight control malfunction
• fire
• inability of crew member to carry out duties
• 50% of glass panel out
• Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT)
• Transponder codes
• 7500
• Hijacking
• 7600
• Communication failure
• 7700
• General emergency
• Weather (hold on this is a long section)
• 122.2
• briefing
• outlook
• standard
• abbreviated
• in flight
• Notam
• D
• Taxi way and navaid outages
• GPS
• Satellite outages
• FDC
• Flight data center regulatory (TFR)
• Terminal Aerodrome Forcast (TAF)
• 5 nm. 4-6 hours
• Metar
• come out hourly
• routine aviation weather report
• Airmets
• Moderate
• valid for up to 6 hours
• Tango
• Moderate turbulence
• Sierra
• Moderate mountain or IFR weather
• Zulu
• Moderate icing
• Sigmets
• Severe weather not associated with thunderstorms
• Turbulence, icing, volcanic ash, dust storms limiting vis. below 3 miles
• Valid for up to 4 hours
• Convective Sigmets
• Severe weather associated with thunderstorms
• Tornadoes, surface winds greater than 50 knots, hail greater than 3/4 inch diameter
• Valid for 2 hours
• Thunderstorms
• Stages
• Cumulus, mature, dissipating
• Stable
• Rime icing, steady precipitation
• Unstable
• Clear icing, good vis., showery precipitation
• Measure temperature lapse rate to determine stability
• Pressure
• 1 inch per 1000 feet
• En route Flight Advisory Service (EFAS)
• 122.0 above 5,000 feet AGL
• Hazardous In flight Weather Advisory Service (HIWAS)
• On VOR's
• Airmets, Sigmets, Convective sigmets, Urgent pireps, or center weather advisory
• Structural Icing
• Rime
• Milky white
• Stratus clouds
• Clear
• Clear and smooth
• Most dangerous
• Cumulus clouds
• Mixed
• Combination of both
• Frost
• Thickness of sandpaper
• 30% less lift
• 40% more drag
• Low pressure
• Inward
• Counter clockwise
• Upward
• High pressure
• Outward
• Clockwise
• Downward
• Fonts
• Cold
• Warm
• Stationary
• Occluded
• IFR Acronyms
• IFR required equipment
• G - Generator/ alternator
• R - Rate of turn
• A - Attitude
• B - Ball
• C - Clock (with second hand)
• A - Altimeter (pressure sensitive)
• R - Radios & avionics for flight
• D - DME above 24,000 feet
• D - Directional gyro
• VFR required equipment
• C - Compass
• A - Airspeed indicator
• A - Altimeter
• A - Anit-colision lights
• F - Fuel quantity
• F - Floatation device
• O - Oil temp.
• O - Oil preasure
• T - Tach
• M - Manifold pressure
• E - ELT
• G - Gear position lights
• S - Seat belts
• Night VFR
• F - Fuses
• L - Landing lights
• A - Ani-colision lights
• P - Position lights
• S - Source of power
• Reporting points (radar enviroment)
• C - Compulsury reporting pionts
• A - ATC directed
• U - Unforcasted weather
• S - Saftey
• E - Equipment malfunction
• L - Leaving any assigned altitude or fix
• E - ETA change of more than 3 min.
• F- Final approach fix inbound
• T - True airspeed change more than 10 knots
• U - Unable to climb or decend 500 feet per min.
• Reporting points (non-radar enviroment)
• C - Compulsury reporting points
• O - Outer marker
• F - Final approach fix inbound
• F - Fixes off airway
• E - ETA change more that 3 min.
• Radio communication falure
• A - Assigned
• V - Vectored
• E - Expected
• F - Filed
• M - Minimum
• E - Expected
• A - Assigned
• Preflight
• W - Weather
• A - Known ATC delays
• R - Runway lengths
• F - Fuel
• A - Alternates
• T - Takeoff and landing data
• Required maintenance
• A - Altimeter/ Pitot system (24 calender months)
• V - VOR (30 days)
• I - 100 hour
• G - GPS (56 days)
• A - Annual
• T - Transponder (24 calender months)
• E - ELT (12 calender months)
• Gyros
• Tumble
• Heading more than 55 degrees of pitch and bank
• Attitude more than 50 - 60 degrees of pitch and 100 - 110 degrees of bank
• You need a VOR to enter class B airspace
• Approach plates
• Star
• fly by
• Star with circle
• Fly over
• No procedure turn when
• Vectored
• No procedure turn sector (NoPt)
• Holding in lue of
• Timed approach
• Cleared straight in
• TAA
• Terminal Arrival Area
• VDP
• Visual Decent Point
• FAA report
• Within 48 hours
• IFR currency
• 6 insturment approaches
• Intercepting and tracking navaids
• Cloud clearances
• You should know this from your VFR training
• Instrument section of FAR section of FAR/AIM

ILS Approaches

Instrument Landing System (ILS) is a precision approach nav. aid which provides accurate course, glide slope, and distance guidance to a given runway. An ILS is like using a VOR for navigation, only it has vertical guidance. You must either have a HSI or a VOR indicator to be able to us an ILS. There are four parts to an ILS, they are the localizer, glide slope, marker beacons, and the approach lighting system. The localizer aligns you with the centerline of the runway. The width of the localizer varies between 3 and 6 degrees, and the service volume of a localizer is10 nautical miles within 35 degrees, and 18 nautical miles within 10 degrees of course heading. The glide slope is a transmitter offset from the runway centerline. This provides vertical guidance to the runway. Full-scale deviation is 0.7 degrees above or below the center of the glide slope. The marker beacons provide range information. There are usually two marker beacons for an ILS they are the outer marker, and the middle marker. The outer marker can be anywhere between 4 and 7 miles from the runway, and the middle marker is usually located 3,500 feet from the threshold. (where you land) Some airports which have a category II and III ILS have an inner marker, and that indicates the decision height (DA) which is where you must go around if you do not see the runway environment. There is much more to know before trying an ILS I would never be able to cover everything in this blog, I just explained what it was and the different components of an ILS. If you would like more information on this topic look in chapter 8 page 21 (8-21) of the Jeppesen Guided flight discovery instrument commercial book.

ATC

To many student pilots the thought of talking to ATC scares them. They are very intimidating to beginner pilots, because they have the power to pull your ticket if you make a mistake. You must remember that they are not there to get you into trouble they are there to help you out and give you assistance. Most of them are vary caring people, and if you have a question do not be afraid to help you out. They would much rather help you out than have to fill out an NTSB (crash) report trust me. It helped me out a lot when I took an ATC course at school and had a controller at Toledo Express (KTOL) teach it. It helped me realize that they are very helpful and they do know there stuff, because we all know as pilots we think that we are the best and we can do everything ourselves, but we can't. If you are not getting the radios as fast as you thought don't worry, because you will in instrument trust me, that is all you are doing is talking to ATC. If you make a mistake don't worry most of the time ATC is very good about it, they come over the radios and give you a stern talking to and tell you that you need to think more. They know that you are a student and you are still learning. If ATC tells you to do something that you don't know how to do just be honest. There was a kid that ATC told them to come in a non-standard way and he ended up stalling to close to the ground and dieing. They are not going to get mad at you for not knowing how to do something if you are a student. Now if you are a commercial student and you don't know how to do an ILS approach they may have a pproblem with that.

Private Pilot Checkride

Once you have built enough hours and understand everything that you need to know you may go on your check-ride. This makes many pilots very nervous to think about. An examiner going flying and asking you questions. There are some important things to remember before and while you are flying. First DO YOUR RESEARCH. You need to make sure that you have a fair examiner, most of them that I have run into are very nice and act like normal people. In fact on my private check ride I forgot that I was even with an examiner. Second, you can either do your flight or questions first. I would recommend doing your questions first, because it allows you to sit down with him or her and just have a conversation. It allows them to understand you and you to understand them. Be the end of the oral you can start to tell what they think is important. Third, do good on your written and it will be easier for you. Many people say that if you get a high score one your written your oral will be easier, and I agree with them, because I got a 94% on my written and my oral was a piece of cake. Plus it gets you even more ready for the oral. Four, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY I highly recommend the ASA test prep on the top left of the article it is the best $10 you could ever spend. Five take a deep breath and relax. If the examiner is asking you question, which they will to see how you can multitask, just have a conversation with them, but that being said, if you are starting to get overwhelmed just tell them to shut up. You should probably tell yours a little nicer, but our examiner for the school is real cool and you can just talk to him like you are talking with one of your friends. I would suggest being very polite, if they do not tell you otherwise, but ours tells us not to do that he wants to just hang out and fly, which makes it much easier on the pilot. The biggest piece of advice to remember is that for your private pilots licence the examiner is not looking for perfection, and wont really care if you make a mistake, as long as you can correct it and show them that you are a COMPETENT pilot. All the examiner is looking for is that you can take off, fly, and land without killing yourself, nothing more. To bad this wasn't true for all of them.

Aviation Technology

One of the biggest new technologies for GA is the new G1000. This thing is by far the coolest glass cockpit system available in GA. There are many new things that this system can do that other systems before could only dream of. First off you can have either a two or a three display system, with your choice of either 10 or 12 inch displays. If you want an even bigger display you can choose the giant 15 inch display which are are interchangeable, so between you primary flight displays (PDF) and you multi-function display (MFD). The G1000 replaces traditional gyroscope instrument with it's new GRS77 Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS) This system also has the new GFC700 autopilot, which can control airspeed as well. The multiple displays are a life saver, especially at busy airports, because you can have your Jeppesen charts, and airport diagrams on your other displays. If you thought all of that was cool then you will be blown away by Gamin's new Synthetic Vision Technology (SVT). This is really cool, because it shows you a 3-D model of the ground and even tells you if you will hit something if you stay on your current path. You can literally fly down a valley in complete fog and know exactly how far you are away from the mountains (although I would not recommend it). Lastly you can even have XM satellite weather on your G1000 that will show you where the storms are within minuets. There are also many other features to see the G1000 for yourself go to https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=6420&ra=true .

Ways to practice

You can of coarse go grab a plane at your school, but unless you have deep pockets you will not be able to do this for long, because it gets very expensive. Your flight school will probably have some flight simulators that you can hop in and practice for free. The only problem with them is that most of them you need at least two people to run, because there needs to be a person setting things up and failing things while you fly. If you use the simulator at the flight school you will be able to use that time as simulated time. The best thing that I have found was FSX. I think that this program is great for student pilots, and even pilots in general. Like AOPA says a good pilot is always learning. You can use this program and get a feel for the cockpit of the plane that you fly and if it is not on there you can go to many sites online and get yours. If you are a private pilot you can practice steep turns and stalls, but the best practice for instrument pilots. You can follow VOR's and NDB's, and also shoot ILS's and GPS approaches. You can put the deck at mins and pop out right at the ground. This is very good practice and gets you used to the feeling of not being able to see anything. It is also a great way to get you used to radio calls. Saitek makes great flight controls which helps even more. I use these all the time and it helps greatly. I also use a joystick with the rudder pedals a lot for a more realistic feeling on the extra and edge.

Airplane Crashes

As pilots it is very important to learn from others mistakes. We need to make sure that the pilots did not loss their lives for no reason, and make sure that this does not happen again. Their are plenty of air crashes that we can learn from. We need to make sure in ground schools that our instructors are bringing this up. If they are not, ask. Also make sure you are going over things that happen on the ground, including running out on a runway during fog. You can learn a lot by going over mistakes. It is a tragedy when someone losses their lives in an airplane crash, we as pilots are the ones who are solely responsible to make sure that it will never happen again. On July 28, 2010 Airblue flight 202 crashed killing all 152 people on board. This could have been avoided if the pilot would have not kept going the wrong way. There are many more, so feel free to comment and leave other incidents or accidents. I know there are many more so go ahead and share your info. If you like my posts please check out the google link on the right side of the page. I get a little money every time you click on it, and many times they have good links for aviation related topics.

What type of school should I go to?

First off you need to ask yourself what do I want to do with this pilots licence? If you answered I want to fly for fun, then you can just go to an airport see if they do training, and if not ask where is the closest. All you will need is a part 61 flight school, they are a little more layed-back. Make sure that they have good maintenance, and nice aircraft. Also if you are going to fly make sure that they have insurance that will cover you in case of a mishap. Next ask yourself how far do I want to go. You will defiantly either need a sport pilot's license, or a private pilot's license. Then you have to see if you will want to fly in weather. (when you can't see the ground) If you do you will need to go get your IFR rating. (navigation based solely on the instruments. If you said you want to do it for a career then you will probably want to go to a part 141 flight school, because these are more exact, and also have the FAA come in periodically to check everything. You will also need to consider going to college to get a degree in aviation. Sure it will be harder and more expensive than others, but it will pay off when it comes to an interview. Take a look at my which school to go to blog to help you decide what school to to. Go to the actual flight school and just hang around there for a while. You can usually see if the flight school is ligit just by sitting there for a bit and seeing how things are done. Here is a link that may also help you with your decision. Choosing Your Flight School

Red Bull Air Race

Red Bull Air Race is the new hit for the aviation industry. The pilots are 15 best in the world. There are many things that they need to be thinking of at one time. They need to know speed, bank, angle, order, height, and G's. Pilots need to keep in mind g stalling which happens when you go past the specific wing loading of you aircraft. When this happens you stall out and many times this happens when the pilots are very close to the ground. They need to stay coordinated at all times during the turn just in case they g stall. If they are not coordinated they will start to go into a spin and there is no way they can recover. Unfortunately Red Bull will not be having races in 2011, they say they are taking a year off. Hopefully they will decide to bring it back in 2012. There are many different rules for these pilots such as the blue gates must be flown through wings level, and the red gates must be flown through knife edge (that is sideways with wings straight up and down). The Red Bull Air Race is very important to the aviation community, because of the fact that it makes aviation cool again, especially for the young people. Red Bull Air Race Website

Headsets

Headsets. The number one piece of equipment a pilot will need for his or her training. There are many different choices and many different companies, but if you are going to spend WELL OVER $100,000 and many times closer to $200,000 for the schooling why use cheap headsets. There is a definite difference between the nice headsets and the cheap ones. I knew someone who had a cheap set who I could never understand unless he had his hand holding the mic to his mouth. Needless to say he did not use those for long. He wasted his money by buying the cheap ones and then having to turn around to buy nice ones. Now which one is completely up to you. The Bose A20 are the top of the line and you will not find a nicer headset. It is well constructed and you will not even hear your plane. ATC's voice will come in so clear you will think they are your co-pilot, but at a price. They are just about $1100 new. On the low end of the spectrum you have the David Clark H10-13.4, which are $320. This is about the lowest that I would go, there are  still plenty of great features, plus you get the great David Clark name and warranty. Anytime you have a problem you can just call the number on the box and talk to a person, and id they can not help you they will have you send it in and they will fix it free of charge. I had an instructor at the school who had their headset for 20 years, then the mic went out so they called the number expecting them to tell her to buy a new set. They told her to send them in and they would fix it. They put a brand new mic on her headset free of charge. Those are the high and low ends, there are many different kinds in-between. If neither one of these look right for you go ahead and click the link and the bottom of this post and it will take you to all 204 headsets on Amazon.com Search Amazon.com for aviation headset,
A few things you might need

Which school to go to

Of coarse there is Embry Riddle, which is known throughout the Aviation community as one of the best, but it is very expensive. There is also University of North Dakota, which has some great programs, and is a little bit less expensive. I like the small class room feel, which is why I did not pick these, but that is just me. There are some benefits and drawbacks between small and large schools. Embry Riddle and UND are both very nice schools, great instructors, and are known everywhere, but these schools are very expensive, and many times you do not even fly the first semester or even year. The small schools you know everyone, cheaper, and many times you start flying right off the bat, but you have to make sure that the school has good instructors, and that there is a airfield somewhere close to the campus. I am around the Ohio-Michigan area so I know that the nice schools around here are Western Michigan University, and Bowling Green State University. I recommend that you just go to the school and look around the airport and just hang out there, you will be able to find out a lot by just talking to the pilots there. Amazon.com has some great products for pilots you can go down to the bottom of the page and I have a link that you can search aviation and there will be things you need. Search Amazon.com for flight bag