When I was in high school, I did a project which involved interviewing military veterans. There were four veterans I interviewed – two who were in the Vietnam War and two in Korea (one was my grandfather). The main focus was to interview them about their personal experiences, and about combat. To do this I had to do research and create tactful, sensitive questions.

My project was successful and I learned a lot, mainly to honor our veterans for what they did. Each veteran was interviewed separately and they did not know each other. However, they all had one experience in common. They told me that their rigorous boot camp training was a major reason why they survived combat. During a firefight, their training with various weapons and scenarios was key to overcoming the potentially crippling fear of combat. When their adrenaline was rushing, hearts pounded, and overworked lungs were burning, their training took over almost like they were on autopilot.

As pilots, there are lessons to be learned from this description. Unless we are flying low over moonshine country, we have no one shooting at us, but these veterans also said their time in service involved very long periods of extreme boredom, followed by short periods of extreme chaos and fear. As pilots, we experience long periods with little to do but monitor instruments and equipment and take in the views (cruise flight), and short periods of high workloads (takeoff and landing). We shouldn’t experience fear unless something goes wrong, or something breaks. We should expect that our training  will take over and guide us through a particular event. If you were to experience a real emergency, do you feel confident your training has prepared you to handle it?

The PTS (practical test standards) book for every license spells out what’s expected from the student. It also spells out what’s expected of the examiner. The examiner is expected to, whenever possible, ask scenario based questions. They ask these during the oral, or give scenarios in flight for the student to work through. This shows the examiner that the student knows this task to the highest level of learning — correlation.

We all learn at different levels. The first level is rote learning. Examples of this level of learning would include memorizing aircraft V-speeds or limitations. Knowing why we use Vx to clear an obstacle or Vbg (best glide) in an engine-out emergency is the next level of learning — understanding.

The third level, application, is putting any knowledge to use in the airplane. The highest level of learning is when you realize how all the different areas of aviation (systems, limitations, weather, performance, regulations, etc.) relate to each other. You take everything into consideration when making decisions. This is called correlation. Scenario-based training encourages this highest level of learning to help you make safer decisions.

Scenario-based training should be a major part of your lessons, whether you’re a student or an instructor. For example, instead of reading and understanding the electric fire/failure checklist, practice it in the air. Once you secure the simulated fire, turn off the master switch (when in a non-congested area and not under a mode C veil), take off your headsets and work the problem to the ground (have a radio and speaker on for collision avoidance). Does your airplane require electric for flaps or gear when landing? Were you talking to ATC at the time? Now do this scenario at night, what changes? How does the workload increase? What about engine failure/fire to a forced landing?

Instead of taking the plane to 500 feet about the ground, try doing this by a runway or suitable grass strip and take the plane all the way to the ground. Talk about differences coping with abnormal or emergency procedures at night, over mountainous terrain or over an overcast layer. What about something slightly less dramatic like high oil temperature, a stuck throttle, a door opening in flight (if not a limitation)? Do this and watch you or your student’s confidence grow.

There are many different scenarios that can be created, mostly based around the aircraft’s emergency section in the operating handbook. There are also many scenarios that can occur that the manufacturer does not provide a checklist for.  It’s valuable to work through the less likely scenarios as well, but always with an instructor and never compromise safety.  This type of training should be done prior to the checkride. Not only to pass the examiner’s scenario-based questions and tasks, but for your personal growth and safety. Moreover, scenario-based training is the best preparation for after you receive your license. It keeps you current and safe and ensures you’re always learning.

If something goes wrong while flying and your adrenaline is rushing and your heart starts pounding, scenario-based training will be crucial to help get you over your fear, and work the problem to continue flying safely and to the nearest airport. Keep your instructor’s number close by to enlist his help and experience.

Learning about weather is one of the most important things you can do as a student pilot (or as an experienced pilot, for that matter). And one of the first weather products you’ll encounter is the Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF), which predicts the weather at specific times for many larger airports. This forecast includes wind, ceiling and visibility–sort of like a METAR in the future.

But just like any weather product, TAFs take some interpreting to get the most value out of them. With that in mind, here are some tips to keep in mind when reading a TAF.

• TAFs are valid only for the airport area. An airport 25 miles away is pretty close in flying terms, but can be a million miles away in weather terms. Be careful not to extrapolate too much when reading a TAF–terrain or other local conditions may mean that nearby TAF is worthless for your flight. This is especially true with localized weather events, like ground fog or scattered thunderstorms. Technically, a TAF is only valid for the area within a 5 statute mile radius of the airport.
• Focus on the trend more than the exact times. The TAF says the ceiling will go from 800 feet to 5000 feet at precisely 10am. Does that mean that a 10:05 departure is a good idea? Probably not. It’s likely that the forecaster will get the trend right (i.e., improving ceilings), but nailing the timing is fiendishly difficult. Focus on the general trend you can expect, but be conservative with timing.
• Don’t pretend the weather is better than it is. Put another way, current weather information always trumps a forecast. So if the TAF suggested the wind wouldn’t pick up until later, but the latest METAR says it’s gusting to 25 knots, don’t ignore reality. It’s likely the forecast was wrong. Some pilots have been known to take off in poor weather conditions simply because the TAF (that could be hours old) promised it wouldn’t be that way. Be more skeptical.
• The age of a TAF matters. Related to the last point, the older a forecast, the less reliable it is. So the age of the TAF you’re reading matters (and is published right at the beginning of every one). Fortunately, TAFs are released on a regular schedule (0000Z, 0600Z, 1200Z, 1800Z), so you can plan when to check the weather. If it’s 1710Z, go ahead and read the TAF, but check back after the 1800Z forecast comes out. In particular, see what changes the forecaster made–is the trend getting better or worse since the last forecast?

Here’s one final tip–did you know that not all TAFs are created equal? Most TAFs forecast conditions for the 24 hours after issuance. But at certain large airports (usually commercial airports that get a lot of long-distance international flights), the forecast period is extended to 30 hours. This is needed for pre-flight planning when a flight could last 18 hours. Use this to your advantage–a longer range TAF can be helpful for planning the night before a flight.

Also, some airports–including Chicago, Atlanta and New York–update their TAFs every three hours instead of every six hours. This is because of the high volume of flights that use these airports, where a more precise and current forecast is essential for planning. Here again, as a general aviation pilot, you can use this to your advantage if you’re flying close to one of these airports.

TAFs are a valuable pre-flight planning tool, and they are created by experts who carefully consider a variety of different models and weather reports. But don’t be seduced by the precision of these forecasts. As you conduct your pre-flight weather briefing, consider the TAF a single data point, and nothing more. Also look at the weather synopsis, METARs, radar, satellite and Area Forecasts.

Too many pilots have learned the hard way that just because a TAF said it would be good weather, doesn’t mean it actually will be.