Gee, that’s shocking! Let’s look a electricity in a new way. In this TOPIC, we’ll talk about electricity as if it was water flowing through pipes instead of electrons flowing through wires. Watch the video above, and then check out these quick cheat-sheet facts for you here: Airplanes are either 14 volt or 28 volt… Continue reading Electrical System
Topic Category: Oral Prep
Managing Your Engine
You want the engine to like it’s Manager Pilot. As the PIC you are going to be doing your best to take care of your engine. We’ll cover a few hot topics of what you should and shouldn’t do to ensure your engine runs right, as well as troubleshooting when it feels like it’s slacking a… Continue reading Managing Your Engine
What Makes it Work
The big loud magic! Engines may seem like magic, and if they do, that’s not a problem at all. By the end of this TOPIC you should be able to fully explain and understand how they work, and what the components are that make them up! We’ll cover all the basic components that comprise your… Continue reading What Makes it Work
What’s Under The Hood
Ask a Question to the Community Ask a Question and get a fast response from our CFIs
Reading the Weather – TAFs
Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts TAFs are very similar to METARs in the sense that they use the same coding abbreviations and a very similar structure. Obviously the main difference between a METAR and a TAF is that the TAF is a forecast while the METAR is just a quick snapshot in time, and is instantly old… Continue reading Reading the Weather – TAFs
Reading the Weather – METARs
METARs METARs are a snapshot in time, a simple observation of what the weather was doing at a particular moment. They are an excellent tool to tell you if the weather is okay right now, but offer no forecast into the future. REMEMBER: They are a direct observation of what is happening at and over… Continue reading Reading the Weather – METARs
Angle Of Attack
The Angle it Attacks Angle of Attack, or AOA as we’ll call it going forward, is technically defined as such: THE ANGLE AT WHICH THE RELATIVE WIND MEETS THE CHORD LINE OF THE WING. Now, that sounds awful fancy, so let’s break it down a bit. The Chord Line is the line that goes from… Continue reading Angle Of Attack
The Power Curve
It’s all about the POWER: Of course big powerful airplanes are cool, but in reality most of the training aircraft we fly have relatively little power with max horsepower ratings somewhere between 100-180hp. Since this isn’t enough power to make the airplane climb vertically like a fighter jet, we need to think about how best… Continue reading The Power Curve
Radio Calls at Non-Towered Airports
How to Talk on the Radio: In this topic, we are going to cover primarily how to talk on the radio at a non-towered airport, although much of the basic phraseology is interchangeable between talking to ATC and simply “self-announcing”. Watch the video above for examples of calls to make in the traffic pattern at… Continue reading Radio Calls at Non-Towered Airports