• Logging into http://faasafety.gov
• Navigating to your My Wings page
• Finding the seminar or event you attended
• Finding a validator who can confirm your attendance at that event
• Submitting the request to the validator

This video presumes that you already have an account on faasafety.gov as that is now a prerequisite for being able to get into the WINGS system and manage your progress. If you are an Airman of any type (Pilot, AMT, flight engineer, etc) and do not yet have an account on the site it is well worth getting signed up, not just for WINGS but also to be able to take safety courses and other things. The AMT side of the site is going to be spruced up significantly in the near future so it will have more useful content for maintenance folks too. You can register for an account here: https://www.faasafety.gov/login/reg/Register.aspx

Validating WINGS credits on FAASAFETY.gov from Simon Twigger on Vimeo

If you have any questions or comments on this video or its contents I would love to hear them, please pop them into the comment field below.

To help address the problem of runway incursions the FAA co-produced a DVD in conjunction with the Airline Pilots Association and United Airlines. This video is reproduced below and focuses on runway safety best practices for commercial operations at towered and non-towered airports.

Even though its focus is Commercial operations the lessons are the same for general aviation so its still well worth watching. The video is around 31 minutes long.

The FAA have a dedicated site for Runway Safety issues here: http://www.faa.gov/runwaysafety/

The Pilots Best Practices for airport safety are as follows:

1. Encourage use of correct terminology and proper voice cadence
2. Eliminate distractions in the operational area.
3. Obtain and use airport diagrams. Use the FAA runway safety website to find airport diagrams for all airports.
4. Conduct “Clearing Turns” prior to entering ANY runway.
5. Maintain a sterile cockpit when taxiing.
6. Maintain appropriate Taxi speed.
7. Encourage pilots to have their “eyes out” when taxiing.
8. Encourage pilots to have a “heads up” policy when taxiing.
9. Attend safety seminars and programs on RUNWAY SAFETY.
10. Improve safety by teaching, advocating, stressing and understanding situational awareness.
11. Customize RUNWAY SAFETY presentations for targeted audiences such as pilot organizations, safety seminars, airport authorities, etc.
12. Cite specific airport RUNWAY SAFETY web pages.
13. Distribute RUNWAY SAFETY materials to every aviation entity.
14. Package and distribute runway safety materials to: Flight Schools, Flight Safety International, Maintenance Centers, Aircraft Manufacturers, etc.
15. Realize that every airport is unique and presents its own set of RUNWAY SAFETY challenges.
16. Stay alert; stay alive.
17. Declare war on errors; make it everyone’s responsibility.

http://www.faa.gov/news/aviation_news/2008/media/MarApr2008.pdf

You can find more information on FAA Aviation News, links to their past editions and info on how to subscribe to their print edition here:

http://www.faa.gov/news/aviation_news/

You can always tell when Rod is speaking at Airventure as the crowd spills out of the seminar hall and it’s standing room only inside! AOPA has an online video showcasing some of Rod’s humorous approach to teaching so you can have a look if you are not familiar with Rod’s style.

Needless to say he has a lot of great information to impart on the subjects of flight training, being a student pilot, flight instruction and a lot more. You can find the March 2008 edition of his newsletter here: http://www.rodmachado.com/Newsletters/March-08.html and this includes a place where you can sign-up to receive subsequent newsletter via email.

The current newsletter gives some links to Rod’s existing material online and information about his new book “Rod Machado’s Instrument Flying Handbook” (you can check out some example chapters and it does look very nice). He writes that subsequent editions of the newsletter will contain free podcasts, CFI slides for instrument ground school and more. Given the quality of Rod’s work this should turn into a very valuable resource so I would encourage you to have a look and sign up.

Bob Comperini - http://fly-ul.com

Bob’s site has a lot (and I mean a LOT!) of great links to a whole bunch of online information relating to ultralights, sport pilot, homebuilding, regulatory and many other topics. Its well worth having a quick visit to see what he has on there.

Aliseo Flying Boats - http://flying-boat.com

Aliseo Flying Boats require the Sport Pilot Weight Shift license and they have a very handy Training page that gives prospective pilots some more information on the sport pilot test and how you can get specific training in the Aliseo II. Its deep mid-winter here in the Midwest, the ski plane fly-ins are in full swing, its great to think about flying around the lakes in summer in one of these aircraft!

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• They have various weather charts but it is not a comprehensive selection so its useful to see what’s going on in the world but not sufficient for getting your own briefing.
• The e>metar feature is interesting - send email from your mobile device to wx@flightaware.com with the airport codes in the subject line and get back a reply containing the most recent METAR and TAF for these airports.
• IFR Route analyzer - Enter a departure and destination airport and see flight plans that have been filed for that route in the past 24 hours.
• Of interest to web and application developers they also provide the FlightXML API. This is a webservice that you can use to query live and historical flight tracking info for use in your own software.

Technorati Tags: flying, IFR, flight tracking

For me this is a book I really love. Perhaps because it is written by a woman it is one of the most honest portrayals of the ups and downs of aviation I have read. She describes the fears, the uncertainty, the elation, the sense of achievement, the whole range of emotions that I think we all experience as aviators but which we might not admit to in public. The other thread running through the book is Rowell’s personal flight of discovery, how the experiences of the flight and her reactions to them lead her to a better understanding of herself.

Barbara Cushman met Galen Rowell through her job at The North Face outdoor equipment company. A whirlwind romance followed leading to their marriage and then things became a blur of travel, photography, climbing expeditions and way too much time waiting for Galen while he did his thing and she watched. Through a growing frustration with this state of affairs, Cushman Rowell is encouraged to list the top 10 things she would most want to do if money was no object. The top 4 items were:

1. Learn to Fly
2. Become fluent in Spanish
3. Explore South America
4. Write a book

Starting at the top of the list she takes her first discovery flight and is immediately smitten, she has her private pilot license seven weeks later and has found a passion that she can call her own. They go on to forgo buying a house and instead purchase a Cessna Turbo 206 which she and Galen use to great effect in their photography business, traveling to and from some of the most mountainous regions in the United States and Canada. Working on items 2 and 3 on the list She takes trips to South America to study Spanish and becomes very proficient in her chosen language and gains a great appreciation of the countries and culture she visits. Despite this, over time some disenchantment starts to creep in again. When one of Galen’s friends suggests she come along on a once in a lifetime flight down to Chile and back, she leaps at this chance to bring so many of her goals together in one trip. Needless to say she later achieves goal #4 in writing ‘Flying South’ and I think its a worth addition to any library.

The book describes each leg of the cross-country flight from Oakland, CA down through Central America, around the western coast of South America to Chile. They then return around the east coast, through Argentina, Brazil, around the Caribbean and back into the US. In the course of the trip they fly over spectacular terrain which is wonderfully captured in the photos in the book. Its hard to imagine having a better person along to document a trip like this than Galen Rowell. They deal with a whole range of weather ranging from good to bad to the truly ugly, she experiences a vacuum pump failure, continued VFR flight into IFR conditions, political coups, crossing the Andes, flying over the Amazon and much more.

Whether you are a pilot or not, this is a great adventure book, Cushman Rowell does a very good job of relating the aviation side of the trip so it can be appreciated by pilots and non-pilots alike. As a pilot, some of her experiences and mental battles were very familiar to me and putting myself in her position and wondering what it would be like to deal with various situations was a very salutatory experience.

Personally I would have liked a few charts in the book to be able to better piece together the flights, instrument approaches and terrain but that would have been a little out of place in a book for a general audience. You might want to follow along with a world atlas as you read or use Google Earth to get an even better feel for the places and terrain. You’ll get a good review of South American geography and an even better appreciation for the flight. If you have access to one, fire up the flight simulator and give bits of it a go for yourself - how would you like to fly their leg to Rio….?

Having the entire set available online will be very convenient for both students and flight instructors. If you are studying for a knowledge test you will find it convenient to be able to print out copies of various charts and tables so you can write on them and mark them up without worrying about ruining your only copy. Similarly, flight instructors can now use these figures which include performance charts, sectional and en route charts, approach plates and more in their own handouts and presentations.

The computer testing supplements are available as downloadable PDF documents on the FAA’s Airman Knowledge Test Questions page. I’ve provided direct links to the individual files below, beware as some of them are quite large and will take a while to download unless you have a broadband connection.

• Sport Pilot (6Mb)
• Recreational and Private Pilot (131Mb)
• Commercial Pilot (8Mb)
• Instrument Rating (10Mb)
• Flight and Ground Instructor (4Mb)
• Airline Transport Pilot and Aircraft Dispatcher (22Mb)
• Aviation Mechanic General, Powerplant and Airframe; and Parachute Rigger (7Mb)
• Additional Figures - One new figure each for the Commercial, ATP and AMT General exams (18k)

Technorati Tags: FAA, flight training

The inscription on the inside front cover caught my eye first of all:

“Nick - Happy Birthday on the occasion of your fifteenth birthday, the world is your oyster”

Aunt Jane and Uncle Mike clearly picked a great book to illustrate their point and I was a little sad to see that Nick had already decided to pass on this photographic tour of the nation. However, his loss was my gain and I spent 15 minutes flicking through the pages and then decided to make the purchase so I could really appreciate its content. In reading the introduction its clear that Jim Wark has a lot of experience in the air as both a navy pilot, airshow performer and more recently as a top notch aerial photographer. In doing a little research online I came across his website, airphotona.com where it mentions that this year Jim was the first recipient of the Epson Aerial Photographer of the Year.

In addition to aviation and photography, he has a background in mining engineering and one of the nice things about the book are the passages of text that he uses introduce each section, describing the social and geological forces at work to shape the landscape. Most photos are annotated with a brief description of the scene and perhaps some historical facts about the buildings or region.

Of course the photography is the main point of the book, all taken from his Aviat Husky high wing which he flies solo, somehow managing the flying and the photography at the same time. The photos are from all over the US, Hawaii and Alaska and do a wonderful job of showcasing the incredible variety of landscapes and cityscapes that this country possesses. Browsing through the book is a great inspiration for flying and will remind all of us of those amazing views we’ve had from the cockpit and the wonderful vantage point that a small aircraft provides. Every once in a while you see something that makes you pause and wish you could capture it for others to see. We’re lucky that Jim has been up there looking for these sights and had a camera along to bring some of them back for everyone to enjoy.

Seeing views like this really fuels that inner frustration with the office life and drives that desire to get out there to see these things for oneself. I’ve been lucky enough to travel US a fair amount and have had the opportunity to spend 6 weeks in the Yukon territory and kayaked the Nepali Coast of Kaua’i on my honeymoon (”There’s 17 miles of open sea to go, what do you mean you forgot the to take the sea sickness pills, honey??”) so some of the sights are familiar. Fresh from strolling around Oshkosh, this book really kicks the daydreams of buying the plane and heading off into the sunset into high gear!

Well, until that happens I’ll have to live vicariously through books like this and the odd trip here and there. At least now I have some great shots of some spectacular places to go and see! if you would like to see the photos you can browse Jim’s entire library on his website. These are the smaller low resolution versions but you’ll get a good feel for his style. The book is available online from all the usual retailers or you can buy it (or one of his other three books) directly from Jim via his website. Take a look, I don’t think you will be disappointed.

If you are interested in Aerial Photography, have a look at the Professional Aerial Photographer’s Association (PAPA) website for more information and links.

• McCauley has a very nice Propeller System Technology Guide which covers theory, performance and maintenance.
• Hartzell has a highly instructive Propeller Safety section describing propeller safety and issues that might crop up in various phases of flight. This would be a great handout/reference for flight schools and FBOs.