Plaid Aviation

Huge shoutout to Alex on becoming the world’s newest Private Pilot! You put in the work and made it happen. Thanks for letting me be a small part of your aviation journey. It’s all up from here! Congratulations!

Last night’s flight was too pretty to wait for Wednesday.

Congratulations to Neela! Her hard work and dedication paid off and she scored a 95% on her Private Pilot written test!

A beautiful layer forming at 9000’ somewhere near the Oklahoma/Texas line for your wingview Wednesday.

🎶 You can always go around! 🎶

8 Times You Should Go-Around During Landing If something isn't working out, don't be afraid to go around and try again.

Pilots use the phonetic alphabet when talking with each other and with ATC to help avoid confusion between similar sounding letters. For example when talking about a specific taxiway, a pilot would say “Taxiway Charlie” rather than “Taxiway C”.

Changes have been implemented over the decades but the phonetic alphabet currently consists of words that have been proven through testing and real world experience to be easy to distinguish and pronounce for speakers of English, Spanish, and French.

The E-6B flight computer was invented by Lt. Philip Dalton of the US Navy a few years before the US entered WWII. After war broke out, hundreds of thousands of these computers were ordered and bomber crews used them extensively.

Able to compute wind correction angle, ground speed, time en route, fuel burn, climb gradients, density altitude, and true air speed (to name a few), the aptly nicknamed ‘whiz wheel’ truly is an incredible tool.

Though many aviators today prefer electronic variants, there are still a lot of benefits to understanding how to use the manual E-6B. Manipulating the computer by hand forms a greater understanding of the relationships behind the calculations and for the well trained pilot, most calculations are just as quick as electronic flight computers and you never have to worry about dead batteries.

Made a quick detour on the way out of Winslow this weekend to see the crater. Just barely missed I’ll be sharing more from the trip soon!

Up before the sun to work on commercial maneuvers!

Understanding weather and weather products is one of the most challenging tasks involved with becoming a Private Pilot. Join me for a free virtual ground lesson this Sunday where we’ll go over everything you need to quickly decipher TAFs and METARs, and of course, pass your FAA written test. Sign up here:

Free Ground School Lesson