Why does primary flight training sometimes take longer than it should? In this post I identify three traps that students fall into, each one of which sucks time and energy out of the training process, making progress take longer and cost more than it should. And these are three things under the control of you, the student, so the good news is they are all in your hands to avoid, or fix.

HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody. As we get back to flying this week (slowly, due to winter weather, as you might expect) I’m introducing some new ideas into my flight training. Specifically, I’m offering three new training guarantees for all my students this year.

THIS POST is a bunch of philosophical points about how to fly better. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope to see you next year.

Dear and wellbeloved student pilots,

Let me get right to the point: to land your airplane in a crosswind you must turn the ailerons into the wind as you touch down. I’m writing you this letter because doing this is proving difficult for some of you, and as a consequence you end up sliding the aircraft sideways across the runway. This is bad for the tires, the undercarriage and my nerves. It has to stop.

If you’re not already involved in the process of getting your first pilot licence or rating – but you want to start – there’s a steep learning curve not for the actual flying process but the for the learning and licensing process. This page is a high-level overview of the steps you need to follow.

FLYING A series of circuits the other week, at CYTZ, with a student, we were asked by the tower controller on duty to check in on the radio mid-downwind, rather than (as previously) in the base turn.

It’s holiday season, and I’m getting a lot of enquiries from people who want to purchase an introductory flying lesson for a friend or loved-one.

Yesterday, my attention was drawn to a recent legal judgement detailing how Transport Canada had wrongly interpreted its own regulations and handing a small but significant victory to aircraft owners and operators. If you’re one, or if you’re planning on taking a flight test any time soon you’ll want to read this.

Courtesy of Wikipedia: A leitmotif or leitmotiv (/ˌlaɪtmoʊˈtiːf/) is a “short, constantly recurring musical phrase” associated with a particular person, place, or idea.

I didn’t get a chance to write last week, but hearty congratulations to another student on their first solo.