Not a huge demographic of people have MMELs on US registered aircraft outside the US. But good to know for the clients that don’t have a tail # specific MELs and use an MMEL as a work around.
If you have an LOA for an MMEL, Canada will allow it, no matter how terrible your countries current leadership might be.
Category: Flight Instruction
The Tie Down Knot
Training Completion
With aircraft ownership comes flexibility, and … serious responsibility. And while having your own high performance aircraft at your disposal is liberating, it can also present some insurance, training and related challenges.
Having the ratings, training and ideal mentor pilots is critical for your safety, consistency of operations and stress free flying.
If you are are serious about safety, set time with us to complete your IFR rating, multi-engine IFR add on, single engine turboprop transition or any other high performance specialty training your insurance company demands as a condition of your policy.
Keep Learning – Add Your IFR
96% of all multi-engine pilots have an IFR rating – what’s stopping you? 54% of all private pilots obtain an instrument rating – when will you complete yours?
Stay Safe – Learn from Pros
The vast majority of fatalities in general aviation are related to task saturation and situational awareness. Our instructors span jet mentors, military veterans to world wide “off airport” experts. Learn from those who have a lot to share and enjoy teaching.
Get Covered – Fly With a Mentor
Your insurance company wants more SOE (supervised operational experience). Whether it is a Cessna 185 tailwheel time building exercise, or a single engine turboprop transition, we can help.
Visit Our Most Common Client Profiles
IFR Completion|Multi IFR Add On
Turboprop Training|First Jet Type Rating
Tailwheel, Float, and Ski Flying (“off airport” ops)
Mentor Mortis (Part 1 of 3)
As you read the accident report, try and accept the fact that a mere 22 years ago, pilots often did things that were questionable at best. To keep the job, to get your foot in the door, or to conform to norms in your company and culture you did silly stuff. Never mind the customized approach to that god forsaken airstrip that you’d been sent to, you’d succumb to things that, technically, may not have been on the up and up with the FARs.
What is even more striking is that all of this “off script” behavior was rarely the stuff that got you hurt. What killed my teachers, was a lack of simple risk mitigation, awareness, and plain old decision making that got the swiss cheese holes to line up. In aviation we recognize that it is a series of things that typically lead to an accident. Our job, to live and be safe, is to constantly be thinking the stacking of bad, vs. the stacking of good. (I wrote about this once upon a time for the turbine crowd here.)
This story is about the day I stopped flying, sometime in 2001, when enough of my mentors had died that I thought, at a minimum, I could take some time off to reflect. I should take a good luck at my own suspect judgement, sub-par skill set and poor choices in equipment, destinations and jobs to fly.
Mostly, it was time to give thanks for the large scoops of good luck that had fallen on me in years where I was doing the riskiest stuff.
185 Wheel Landing Myth Stuff
Let’s admit that all taildraggers are different. Some way way different. Some are easy and some are mean. I have not landed a Douglas DC-3, but I bet it is easier than a Super Cub on a cross-windy day.
Regarding the cult of the Skywagon and related 185 / 180 obsessors, I can offer this from 47 years of breathing, 25 of which I’ve spent teaching flying things: The Cessna 180 / 185 Skywagon is an easy thing to land, to land well, with grace and aplomb, when you master key principles:
CIGAR TIPS
(aka CCIGGARR TIPPS)
The beauty of mnemonic devices is that they allow the tail wheel, seaplane or helicopter pilot do a checklist without the use of both hands. While there are checklist purists out there who may disagree with my methods, let me offer this: If you fly many different aircraft, whose checklists can be absent, inappropriate, out of date, etc. it is best to develop your own. A good way to build that base, for everything from a J-3 Cub up to t Beech 18, is to use, what I’ll term, “the classics.” CIGAR TIPS and GUMPS (more on GUMPS in another post.)
Pattern Work
I’m near certain that umpteen zillion posts have written about this subject. Nevertheless, here I go with my addition to the pile.
How do you teach students to land safely, who didn’t know how to fly a mere 10 hours ago?
The answer, to me, is 100% about feel, energy management (à la glider teaching), looking, sensing and adjusting as necessary. A trap that I, and many of my colleagues, have fallen into is thinking that landing is something a student will embrace if they are given firm numbers, power settings, checkpoints etc. Any type of recipe that emphasizes standardization exclusively does two big disservices to the student: