All posts in Flying Tips

Wake Turbulence Avoidance Made Easy

Wake turbulence is a serious threat to aircraft of all sizes. One of the most common places to find wake turbulence is at busy airports, especially during big airline pushes. It is vital to avoid the swirling vortices behind that fat Airbus on short final and we’ve all be trained on the proper avoidance technique, but how do we implement it? Read more…

Flight Planning in the Internet Era

Familiarizing yourself with a new airport? Put that Airport / Facility Directory away and fire up YouTube! Is that sectional chart a little too ambiguous? Fold that chart up and “fly” the route with Google Earth. See how modern websites are changing the way tech-savvy pilots plan their flights. In his article, Vincent from PlasticPilot.net evaluates several online tools for flight planning and preparation.

A word of caution: As great as many of these resources are, pilots should stick to official sources as the primary means of flight planning.

Fly the Visual Approach, Backed Up by the ILS

How often do you shoot an instrument approach? Chances are that it is not very often. Most of us have the good sense to stay out of the weather when conditions are marginal. Furthermore, in most parts of the world, the weather is usually conducive to a visual approach. This is good news for VFR pilots, but it can make the instrument rated aviator more than a bit rusty. Read more…

Mental Math: Convert Celsius to Fahrenheit

As aviators, we are particularly concerned with temperature. We monitor our EGT or ITT, CHT, OAT, TAT, or SAT. Most of the time we deal with this alphabet soup of temperatures in terms of degrees Celsius. Most Americans however, still think in terms of degrees Fahrenheit. We need  a simple method to convert degrees Celsius from the ATIS report to degrees Fahrenheit. Read more…