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Listen to the Tower online
ONE of the challenges for new students is to get to grips with radio communications. This is especially important for my students as we conduct our lessons based at CYTZ, a busy controlled airport.
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Photo by Gary Lopater on Unsplash
Life as an airline pilot
It’s a funny how things go in threes, isn’t it? Today’s “three” was a trio of enquiries all nearly identical: “Hi Alec, I have an established job in a professional field, I’m looking at my future behind a desk for the next thirty years, and I think I want to be an airline pilot instead.
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Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash
TATC: who’s PIC, and what’s a ‘defect’?
Today I read a curious decision handed down by the Transport Appeal Tribunal of Canada. That’s the body to which pilots can appeal if Transport Canada fines them (officially, issues an administrative monetary penalty) for breaking one of the Canadian Aviation Regulations. If the appeal is successful, the fine is cancelled and the pilot’s reputation… Read more »
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Flight videos: transcripts
Those of you who have been having lessons with Ivan and me know that we record all our flights on video, including the airplane intercom and radio communications …
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Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash
No person shall operate an aircraft
When you get in your small airplane in Canada to go flying there are a bunch of requirements that it has to meet in order for the flight to be legal. The rules are scattered through the Canadian Aviation Regulations, so I thought it might be useful to gather together as many of them as… Read more »
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First solos: Justin, Fahad, George and Clive
I’ve let myself get behind on posting student news in recent weeks – and this is me starting to catch up.
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Checklists
All recent student pilots will be familiar with the difficulties of the dreaded checklist – that innocuous spiral-bound booklet or laminated sheet of terse instructions and checks whose contents torture and haunt the start of every flight…
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Photo by Garrett Jackson on Unsplash
How young is too young?
Every so often I get an email or phone call from a happy family member who wants their young one to get a PPL or recreational pilot permit…
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First solo: Clive
Another student milestone reached…
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Photo by Matt Artz on Unsplash
Wind shear in the circuit
Flying circuits this Friday with a student at CYTZ, I noticed an interesting phenomenon – that our progress on the downwind leg seemed unusually slow. We had a lot of time to level off from the climb out, pick a distant landmark to help fly a straight leg, contact ATC and ask for a touch-and-go,… Read more »