Joe Gutierrez of Kingman, Arizona sends in this advice: The best flight training tool is to commit yourself 100% to learning how to fly without reservation. To say you want to is not enough. You have to commit yourself. Second, no sim time or DVD — this is artificial and the end result is still the same, didn’t learn […]
Feature
Flying the Alaska Highway
This is part three in a series of stories about flying to Alaska. Read about Bill’s trip planning, Flying to Alaska and Return from Fairbanks. It took four days flying from South Carolina to reach Fort Nelson, British Columbia, 283 miles up the Alaska Highway from its starting point at Dawson Creek. And more than 1,100 road miles — […]
Tip: Assist in your annual
Kevin Carbone of Winchester, Va., advises pilots to find a shop that permits owner assisted annuals. Bring your own tools. Start with the basics. Remove seats and floor boards to expose stuff. Remove any wing covers, tail cone, engine cover top and bottom. Do the oil change and filter as needed. Get an AvLab test kit. Be […]
Flying to Alaska
This is part two in a series of stories about flying to Alaska. Read about Bill’s trip planning, Flying the Alaska Highway and Return from Fairbanks. This past summer I crossed off a significant item on my flying bucket list — Alaska. The journey from my home airport near Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Fairbanks and back covered more than […]
Tip: Ask the WHY questions
Scott Brackett of Kingman, Ariz., advises other pilots to get to know your IA or the best mechanic on the field. “Ask the WHY questions,” he says. “If there are engineers who fly at your airport, ask them WHY questions.”
One pilot’s Alaska trip prep plan
This is part one in a series of stories about flying to Alaska. Read about Bill’s Flying to Alaska, Flying the Alaska Highway and Return from Fairbanks. Recently a friend asked me to help him prepare for a flying trip to Alaska. I said I would, using notes taken from my own 3,500-mile journey in a Cessna 172 from […]
Tips for safe winter flying
Recently published by AOPA Insurance were several tips to help pilots get into air during the coldest time of the year: Winter. “Pilots who enjoy winter flying acknowledge that while your preflight might be a shiver-inducing experience, you will likely not face thunderstorms, one of warmer weather’s traditional hazards,” the report begins. “The cold air also provides […]
Tip: Daily drills pay off
Paul Tomascik, a CFI from Ottawa, Ontario in Canada, shares this idea: “One of the easiest and most effective ways to practice system transitions in a plane that you are unfamiliar with or one that you’re rusty in is to take a picture of the panel with your iPad and chair fly with the screen-shot […]
Video: Head-to-head comparison of inflight cameras
Our friends at The HD Pilot recently uploaded this video, explaining: “Up until now, all of our HD Pilot videos have been made with a GoPro camera. But recently, we were given the opportunity to evaluate a Drift Ghost-S HD camera and compare it with the top of the line GoPro 4 Black.”