My name is

Alec Myers

I’m an experienced flight instructor in Toronto.

Here’s my blog.

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Category: Technique

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Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

Mental arithmetic for pilots

Commonly in flying a small plane (and in training to do so) it’s helpful to be able to to make approximate calculations of various factors in flight. These usually crop up during navigation exercises, particularly the ad-hoc diversion exercise which has to be planned and executed fairly rapidly from the pilot seat while handling the… Read more »

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Photo by Larry Costales on Unsplash

Why is it hard to steer at takeoff?

We’ve had a lot of windy days this last week at CYTZ. A big low pressure system (one of the last of the winter, I hope) to the north east has been pushing strong northerly winds over Toronto, and when the wind comes over the downtown core it creates a lot of turbulence and gusts around the east-west runway at the Island.

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Photo by Dlanor S on Unsplash

Crosswind landings: you are not driving a car!

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.