It’s not often that I write about airplane accidents, but this report makes useful (and sad) reading for PPL students across the country. In August of last year, in Alberta, a Cessna 152 crashed, killing the sole-occupant pilot. The aircraft was owned and operated by an aerial photography company, and had made a forced landing… Read more »
Despite the terrible weather this last month I have been doing various lessons for students in the Decathlon, and those students while experienced enough in the basics of flight and aircraft control have no prior experience behind a constant speed propellor, which which the Decathlon is equipped. As I’ve written previously, there are a range… Read more »
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.
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.
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 »
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…
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 »
Some years ago, flight crews on at least the largest airplanes had five members, each one of whom would have a full-time rôle to fill during the flight and without each of whom being present some important things wouldn’t get done.
My colleague Ivan was prepping a student for their PPL flight test and he asked me if I knew a good online resource to help explain what effects moving the centre of gravity of an airplane has on its flight characteristics.
One of the features of flying a small airplane that contributes to safety is this: most of the time, circumstances, and the airplane both give you lots of warning of an impending accident and plenty of opportunities to repent, change your ways, and prevent a bad outcome.