Plane and Pilot

OCTOBER 4, 2024

With your fresh pilot certificate, what fun steps can you take to continually grow as an aviator? The question for the new private pilot is simple: Is that a doorway to go through or one that you never open, limiting your flying career? One is with other pilots. Ride with other pilots and learn from them.

Crosswind

Pilot Institute

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

Steep turns should be one of the most fun maneuvers pilots learn. But for many pilots, flying coordinated turns while keeping altitude and speed steady is hard enough. In maintaining a properly coordinated steep turn, the pilot must use the opposite aileron to maintain bank.

Lift

Plane and Pilot

NOVEMBER 10, 2024

Sometimes it’s emotional—the Beech Starship, what few of them are still in the wild, inevitably wow viewers of both the pilot and nonpilot persuasion. The canopy provides plenty of headroom for even taller pilots, while the view over the nose is equally generous. But successful? Not at all. How did any given airplane sell?

Airplanes

Pilot Institute

MARCH 29, 2024

Key Takeaways Slow flight trains pilots to handle the aircraft at speeds just above stalling. That’s why it’s crucial for pilots to learn aircraft control at low speeds. Additionally, both private and commercial pilot checkrides require the demonstration of slow flight. Pilots use reference stalling speeds instead.

Lift

Pilot Institute

MAY 4, 2024

Short field landings are a true test of a pilot’s skill. They are also one of the most feared maneuvers during the private pilot checkride. Whether you’re new to short field landings or a pilot needing a refresher, this essential guide is for you. The POH lists landing distances for specific gross weights.

Weight-Shift-Control

Flying Magazine

MAY 6, 2025

Adventurous aerobatic pilot Frank Christensen, owner of Christen Industries, which built the Pitts Special series and the Christen Eagle II aerobatic biplane kit, watched as biplane sales fell during the early 1980s. Its shortcoming was a meager useful load for its 1,800-pound gross weight. Sales grew.

Gross Weight

Plane and Pilot

OCTOBER 3, 2024

When spelled geoduck it represents a grotesque, oversized mollusk, or clam to we pilot simpletons. Much depends on the aircraft’s weight, pilot skill and, surprisingly, “how much abuse you want to experience. Checking the oil is the main attraction to the pilot. The airplane will handle more than you want to.”

Airplanes

Plane and Pilot

DECEMBER 16, 2024

Planespotters note the F2’s separate ailerons and flaps, conventional tail. The landing gear box had to be substantially stronger with the two-piece gear, so we were able to see a weight savings with the one-piece gear. Twin high-backed seats adjust on steeply raked rails to tailor headroom and legroom for a wide range of pilots.

Rudder

Plane and Pilot

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

Kilo Charlie was in need of a modern glass-panel trainer, adequate for a student and instructor, IFR capable, with low operating costs and, most importantly, capable of presenting well to this generation of prospective student pilots. Maximum Gross Weight: 1,587 lbs. Empty Weight, Standard: 959 lbs. Wing Area: 128.1

Knot