How to take off and land from grass runways (video tip)

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This week's tip explores how to properly takeoff and landing from a grass runway. This is one of the maneuvers you'll learn during private pilot training and teaches you how to get the maximum performance and utility from an airplane.

How to find the smooth air

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If you climb out on a typical summer day, you’ll bump along for the first 5,000 feet in hazy air. Then, if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice there’s almost a line in the sky, above which is clear blue sky and below is murky. That’s the top of the haze layer, and below it you’ll almost always find a few bumps.

What would you have done?

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I turned my head left to look out the side window hoping to make sense of what I was seeing, but the pitch blackness with only a couple lights was of no help. I immediately looked at my G5 [attitude indicator], and what I saw made my head spin! For a split second I questioned whether my G5 had malfunctioned.

How to identify airport runways and traffic patterns (video tip)

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A standard traffic pattern is normally flown when setting up to approach and land at an airport. In this video, we'll take a look at the standard ways to both enter and depart a traffic pattern, as well as look at how runways are identified based on their location and orientation.

Accelerated Stalls: Sporty’s Flight Maneuver Spotlight

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An accelerated stall is a stall that occurs at a higher airspeed than a 1G stall and can be caused by an aircraft making abrupt control inputs such as too much back pressure during a banked turn. As you may recall a stall can occur at any airspeed or attitude, as long as the wing's critical angle of attack is exceeded and the accelerated stall demonstrats this fact.

Video Tip: How to land a tailwheel airplane (wheel landing method)

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While flying a tailwheel airplane is not much different than a traditional nosewheel airplane in the air, taking off and landing are a different story. This week's tip takes a look at what it takes to properly land a tailwheel airplane using the "wheel method".
checkride

Excuses to Proceed with a Checkride (You Probably Shouldn’t be Using)

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If you do proceed forward with a test with any of these or other handicaps already identified, you will get a fair shake from a DPE. However, they can’t stretch the standards because of conditions or circumstances. You will have to perform to the same standards despite any outside pressures as you would if you did it on a day when these pressures were not present.
ils critical area

Ask a CFI: What is an ILS critical area and when should I hold short?

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The critical area for the instrument landing system is located near the ILS antenna array, where an airplane on the ground (or vehicle) in that space could interfere with the radio signals for airplanes flying an ILS instrument approach. An ILS consists of two separate facilities that operate independently but come together in the cockpit to enable both lateral and vertical precision guidance.

Video tip: How thunderstorms develop

Thunderstorms can cause considerable aircraft damage on the ground and in flight. Even airlines take extra precautions to divert around convective activity for the comfort of the passengers and the safety of the flight. In this week's video tip, you'll learn the three conditions necessary for the formation of a thunderstorm. A thorough understanding of how and when thunderstorms develop will allow you to plan your flight to avoid dangerous weather.

Quiz: How Does The Body React To Flight?

Do you know how the human body will react when exposed to the…