Aviation Forum / General / Learning / April 2007

A convenient log and expense entry form that you keep on board your
plane;
A log program that can track Flight and Air Time. Flight Time for your
pilot log book and Air Time for maintenance purposes and for your

Well, I was due to fly at 9am yesterday (Saturday), but a call to the
airfield yielded a cancellation due to dodgy weather. We tentatively
re-scheduled for the next day, (today), at around lunchtime. The
forecast for the next day was meant to be almost worse than Saturday.

Greetings.  I am planning to start taking lessons, hopefully next
month, with the goal of getting a sport pilot license.  Does anyone
have any general advice for me about the process of learning to fly?
Any things you wish you had known before you started?

I asked my instructor on the weekend what a pilot is expected to do, should
he come across a downed plane, or was in the vicinity on another plane that
was going down, or making a forced landing.
He said that you should tune to the relevant ATC frequency, and inform them

Question:  Does the PA28 have "Differential ailerons" ?
I would think that it does because during flight almost not rudder is
required to bank the plane into a turn, but I don't see anything on
allerons in the POH under controls.

I'm getting close to solo but my instructor is still not satisfied
with my cross wind landings. He has me doing a bank and keeping my
nose straight and holding altitude. I know it must be important
because he keeps doing it and tells me its for cross wind landings.

This could be deemed off-topic but I was wondering why it gets so cold
on the Atlantic side of the USA compared to the Pacific side in the
winters. Given the frigid waters of the Pacific compared to the warmer
Atlantic, it is surprising to me that Boston gets much colder than

Straight and level, unaccelerated. Then you bank shallow to one side
and hold the heading with opposite rudder while holding altitude. Is
this coordinated? Ball is completely out to one side and pitch
adjusted to hold altitude.

Had another lesson on the weekend. Beautiful day, hardly any breeze on the
ground. Was surprised at how much there was up at circuit height.
We were using rwy 35 instead of 17, which is one I've not taken off or
landed on before. I like 17 because of the visual references on ...

I'm at 95 hours and am wanting to transition to a complex plane.  I
expect I will initially be in an arrow.  How many hours, ballpark,
should one expect to transition to a complex plane?

Our class is wondering:
If a pilot were able to hover an aircraft in the air at an unchanging
point (not relative to the ground) for 12 hours (and if he was able to
offset the wind and he also had enough fuel), since the Earth would

Another thread caused me to think about the things we must always have in
mind as our flight progresses and I thought it deserved its own thread as I
am sure there is lots of room for input (and humor) from all here.  I begin
by suggesting the following and invite additions.

In a previous post, I read the following.  Where can I find this in
the regulations, that you can do the commercial in a SE non-complex
aircraft first, then the same day (or some amount of time as said
below) demonstrate the ME, for both ME and SE commercial privileges?

I started to use the AOPA real time flight planner, but found that
it is difficult to quickly locate the VFR waypoints, as some are not
marked on the sectionals. Even for those that are marked on the
sectionals, it is not clear what geographical features to look for.

I'm at the very beginning of my career change, I have bought the
books, I will get my medical done in the UK, then sit the theory exams
and if all goes well, I will choose a school -only where do I start
looking?