Last week, I suggested some books to read and some movies and TV shows to watch. Now, here are 10 tips for student and active pilots to stay engaged with aviation while waiting for the world to get back to normal.
Student Pilots
Online Ground School: Dive into Sporty’s Learn to Fly course (free for Young Eagles!), or offerings from other companies like ASA or Gleim, and hit the books.
Practice Makes Permanent: If you’re already doing ground school, now is a great time to take some practice tests. Keep hitting them until you consistently score in the 90s.
Learn in a Flash: Flash cards can be really useful when studying for both the written and oral exams, but it can be hard to find the time to sit down and actually write them. Give it a try.
See How They Did It: Spend some time online reading blog posts from other students to see what helped them study and prepare. I’m pretty biased, but we strongly suggest you start here.
Viva Video Chat: Work with your CFI to do some ground instruction over Skype, FaceTime, etc.
Watch and Learn: Check out training videos on YouTube, especially any that your CFI recommends — they’re not all filled with good ideas, of course. Personally, I like WiFi CFI as a place to start.
Make a Plan: Even if you’re not planning on flying, do some practice flight planning. Pick a $100 flight near your home airport or sketch out your dream flying vacation. Draw your courses, pick your waypoints, do your navlog — it’s all great practice.
Apply for Scholarships: It’s hard to think of a better time to get some paperwork knocked out and try to find some financial assistance for your future flight training. Start here.
Say Again: For many students, one of the hardest, or at least most initially intimidating, things about learning to fly is talking on the radio. Get your books out and brush up on phraseology, and try talking through an entire flight, playing both pilot and controller (if you imagine yourself in controlled airspace). For more passive, but still very valuable, exercise, listen to LiveATC on the web or via their app. Pick an airport you know, or one you don’t, and try to follow along.
Only the Flying Is Simulated: Spend some time with your favorite desktop or mobile flight simulator, like Microsoft Flight Simulator, X-Plane, or Infinite Flight. If you have a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition, you can download the first six lessons from EAA’s Virtual Flight Academy for free!
Certificated Pilots
Catch Up on Your Reading: If you’re like me, you have a stack of aviation magazines on the coffee table, your desk, or in your hangar. Take a minute to dive into those articles you haven’t had time for. Of course, I hope you’ll start with EAA Sport Aviation, assuming you don’t read it cover to cover the second you pull it out of the mailbox. And don’t forget the Sport Aviation archives, where you can read every issue starting with the first newsletters back in 1953.
Give Yourself Some Credit: FAA WINGS credit that is. There are multiple online courses and webinars that qualify for credit as part of the FAA’s proficiency program, and, if you complete enough of them, it counts as a flight review.
And Speaking of Webinars: We’ve done more than 500 of them over the past 10 years, and they’re all archived and available for you to watch online.
Tidy Up Your EFB: If you fly with ForeFlight or any other electronic flight bag app, chances are you’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to all of the available features. Spend time going through the menus to get more familiar, customize settings and preferences, download map and data updates, etc.
Browse a Museum: A lot of aviation museums, ours included, have a lot of information about their collections online. Many even have full-on virtual tours and cockpit climbs. Once you’ve learned everything there is to know about the aircraft in the EAA Aviation Museum, have a look at some others from around the world.
Of course, the National Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Flight are no-brainers, as are the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Planes of Fame, and Pima. But there are some you may not know as well, like the Hiller Aviation Museum, the San Diego Aerospace Museum, the Port Townsend Aero Museum, and the Carolinas Aviation Museum. Since these trips are virtual anyway, don’t just stay in the States. Check out the Flugwerft Schleissheim annex to the Deutsches Museum, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, the Central Air Force Museum in Monino, Russia, and the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow (the story behind their unrivaled World War I collection is worth studying all on its own).
This is a big list, but it doesn’t even come close to scratching the surface. Use these as a starting point, and yell at me in the comments about all of the great ones I left out.
Plan Your Dream Trip: Fire up your tablet, or if you’re still old-school enough (guilty!), lay out the sectional charts and plan a flight. Make it to some place you’ve never flown but have always wanted to, and really immerse yourself in it. Fill out the navlog, get current weather, make notes about checkpoints and frequencies and the like, and really immerse yourself. And then hold that trip in your mind as a reward that you’ll take once things have gotten more normal again.
Plan an Upgrade: If you’re a private pilot, spend some time studying for your instrument rating or commercial certificate. Bone up on constant-speed propellers and retractable landing gear if you’re thinking about getting a complex endorsement. Grab a copy of Stick and Rudder and study the section on conventional gear if you’re considering a tailwheel endorsement.
Make Progress on Your Project: Travel and other restrictions may make this harder for some than others, but if you’re building or restoring an airplane and can get to your workspace, then by all means get in there and get to work. Every successful builder/restorer I’ve ever talked with has said, wherever possible, “Do a little every day.” And if you’ve finished a project, please be sure to tell us about it — we’d love to share your story in Sport Aviation magazine.
The Next Best Thing: Flight simulators aren’t just for student pilots. Spend some time with Microsoft Flight Simulator, X-Plane, Infinite Flight, or whichever happens to be your favorite. If you followed the earlier suggestion and planned a trip, fly it in the simulator. And, when you fly virtually, try your best to hold yourself to real-world standards. These aren’t games — unless you treat them as such.
All of the (Rest of the) Above (Too): Yes, you’ve passed your written, oral, and your checkride, and you’ve gotten your certificate. But that, as the old saying goes, is just a license to learn. Any one of us could benefit from going back and doing some relearning of the basics, as listed in the Student section above. If you disagree, take a practice written for the private — did you get 100 percent? The experience can be humbling, but that’s okay.
If you’ve got other suggestions, please share them in the comments!