Flying in clear skies is easy, but how do pilots fly in foggy weather? Aviators relied on sight to fly aircraft in the early days of aviation, flying without seeing outside the cockpit was impossible for quite some time. Luckily, Lieutenant James H. Doolittle pulled it off when he conducted the first “blind” flight in
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At various times during their training and in their careers, many professional pilots find that they need to get more flying hours in order to progress. This may happen quite early on, when training for a CPL (Commercial Pilot’s License), for which a minimum of 200 hours total flight time is required. It may be
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So you think that you want to be a CFI, or Certified Flight Instructor. Perhaps you have decided that teaching people to fly would be a fascinating career, since you love flying. Maybe you just want to be paid to fly, and this is one way to do it. Or you could be working towards
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The idea of the engine failing in a small single engined plane is very frightening to some people. To those who don’t know, it might seem that there is nothing you can do and a crash is inevitable. But this is not the case. If the engine fails, it is possible to land the aircraft
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A Private Pilot is an individual who holds a Private Pilot’s license (PPL), also known as a Private Pilot’s Certificate. This means the person is able to fly as the Pilot in Command of an aircraft, but only for pleasure, but not for remuneration, unlike a holder of a Commercial Pilot’s license (CPL) or Air
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The takeoff in any aircraft occurs when the airplane leaves the ground and becomes airborne. However, there is a lot more to it than that. There are a number of things which need to be done in advance, and the takeoff itself is split into a few different stages. This is true of any aircraft,
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Despite the fact that many air passengers worry about them, plane crashes are in fact extremely rare. There are a wide range of estimates given by different sources, but the odds of dying as a plane passenger are usually quoted as around 1 in 200,000. This compares with odds of 1 in 4,000 for dying
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Some people think that before taking off in an airplane the pilot simply has a casual glance at it. Perhaps he kicks the types, checks the fuel gauges to makes sure he has enough fuel, and then just departs. But this is very far from the case. All good pilots use pre-flight checklists before every
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Pilots frequently worry about flying in bad weather. This topic is covered in various parts of the PPL syllabus, and so it should be, for bad weather flying can be dangerous. So if you are a private pilot, can you fly safely in bad weather? And if so, how bad does it have to be
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There are some skills that we assume almost anyone can acquire. We all send our kids to school, expecting them to learn to read, write, and do simple arithmetic well enough to cope with ordinary adult life. Similarly, most people believe they will have the intelligence and coordination required to learn to swim, ride a
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