Tomas Vykruta Data Daily

I flew as CFI with a private pilot today in a SR20. 3 landings, all of them were bad, one resulted in a go-around.  We discussed after and I offered him a simple piece of advice. Between the flare and contact with the runway, the plane SHOULD NEVER GAIN ALTITUDE .  Scan your eyes up and down the runway and pay extremely close attention to the elevator, do not let the plane climb, ever. It is ok to level off momentarily in the flare if you feel the plane is going too fast, but altitude should never increase, only decrease or stay constant. GOLDEN RULE: The plane  SHOULD NEVER GAIN ALTITUDE during landing flare. He came back to me later and said his landings after this advice were perfect. I have seen this over and over, I don't know if it is fear of landing too soon at high speed, but pilots I fly with over and over have a tendency to get too low and then climb again. The plane is now near stall, high above the runway, and they need to add power to compensate. Abo...

A major difference between how a new private pilot vs. an old professional pilot fly the same plane is  how little the professional pilot does. The seasoned pro seems to rarely ever interact with the plane, it almost looks boring! The private pilot is very busy - constantly checking things, making adjustments, the work load is furious, continuous, non stop, and perhaps a little stressful. I flew right seat as CFI in a SR20 with an instrument pilot today. The goal was to practice non-precision GPS approaches to short runways. These are arguably the most difficult and dangerous approaches, and this is exactly what you're dealing with at most small airports in America so it's important to be proficient. Anybody can shoot a perfect ILS, especially with an autopilot, but it takes much more discipline to fly a non precision approach to minimums to an uncontrolled field with a short runway. The pilot today is a 1.5 year instrument private pilot and still quite nervous about flyin...

You're buying a plane, you and your broker carefully study the logs and are very happy with the spectacular history the plane has. What a deal! But what if...a bunch of nasty stuff has been removed from the logs. And it's done completely legally? FAR 14 91.417 Maintenance Records  clearly lists what record keeping is required. The question we will answer here is what's not needed . Let's start with looking at minimal set of what's needed: Must keep "permanent records" forever on engine, air frame and props: Total time in service Time since overhaul Time since last inspection AD directives Here';s an example of an engine log that is very minimal but completely legal: 1150 total time in service 1150 since last overhaul 150 hours since last inspection ADs list that has been complied with Manufactured in 2001 These can be written on a napkin, you don't need a logbook. Notice there are no entries from a mechanic, these are...