I really wish this airplane existed. I would actually buy it. I currently have a Piper Comanche, but I need another seat due to a baby on the way. I've been looking at 6 seat twins and Bonanzas and Saratogas, but since the 916 came out, I've had this thought in my head...

Imagine an airplane with 3 Rotax 916is engines. If you loose an engine, you still have 2/3 of your power, which is enough to climb out of trouble. According to AI calculations, the blue line would be 8 knots below Vy, so it is basically a non-issue in this aircraft configuration. So basically, the engine-out safety margin would be unmatched. The installed weight of a 916 is literally 1/3 of a TSIO-520 So the plane would be lighter than a typical twin. A 916 is $57K, so you could get 3 for the same price as 2 on a turbo twin. Fuel burn is significantly less than almost all twins especially pulling back to 45% or 55%. Maintenance on a Rotax is far less than on any Lycoming or Continental, and cylinder changes are rare. Useful load and range would be outstanding.

AI-Based stats assuming 24lbs of wing loading (205 SF), composite construction, 2,850 empty weight, and 150 gallons of fuel.

Cruise speed at 12,000 Feet:
45% - 146KTS@12.0GPH - 1840NM
55% - 164KTS@15.1GPH - 1630NM
65% - 178KTS@18.7GPH - 1420NM
75% - 191KTS@21.6GPH - 1305NM
85% - 201KTS@26.2GPH - 1130NM

Rate of climb: (SL - 1925 FPM) (10,000ft - 1570FPM)
Empty weight 2,850 LBS
MTOW: 4800 LBS
Useful Load: 2050 LBS
Full Fuel payload: 1050 LBS

Does anyone knows what is the current preferred hiring minimums for Piedmont or what hour will get you a interview slot. I live in the PA area and flying out of the Harrisburg base would be a dream for me.

I’m 19, working 50–60 hours a week on the ramp to cover living costs and flight training. I already have my First Class Medical, am taking my written next month, and will start flying right after.

I’m about a year into Mechanical Engineering, doing it part-time though. While I find the subject genuinely interesting, I know 100% that I will never work a standard 9-to-5 desk job. My only goal is the airlines.

I’m considering switching to an easier bachelor's degree like IT or business. On top of that, if I lose my medical or get laid off 10 years into flying, it seems unlikely anyone would hire an engineer with zero real-world experience and a decade-old degree.

For airline pilots: Does having an engineering degree give any meaningful advantage at the majors over an easier accredited degree, or am I running myself into the ground for no reason?

I’m 24 with my PPL & business degree with (115 hours) and currently studying for my instrument written. I work full-time making $78K before taxes, working Monday through Thursday (4x10).

My goal is to become an airline pilot. I currently fly around 16 hours a month and pay for training without loans.

Once I get my CFI, I plan to keep my job and instruct Friday through Sunday, reinvesting my CFI earnings into additional flight hours.

My question is whether it’s worth keeping my stable income and building hours part-time or taking a pay cut to instruct full-time and reach the airlines sooner.

What would you do in my situation?

Hello,

I am a human factors psychologist hoping to explore how aviation professionals perceive wearable biosensor technologies - like Oura Ring or Apple Watch - that monitor things like heart rate, sleep, stress, fatigue, and workload. We are interested in your views on the benefits, concerns, and utility of these technologies in aviation operations.

Participation involves a one-to-one interview via Microsoft Teams that lasts roughly one hour.

Use this link to sign up if you are interested: https://bookings.cloud.microsoft/book/PerceptionofWearablesResearchStudy@ad.ndus.edu/?ismsaljsauthenabled

Feel free to DM me or comment if you have any questions!

Hi everyone,

I’m a PhD researcher in aviation human factors at Polytechnique Montreal. I’m studying how pilots understand and interact with flight-deck automation during descent and approach, especially situations involving mode confusion, errors, unexpected AFC transitions, or uncertainty about what the automation is doing.

The study begins with a short online screening form, which takes about five minutes. If you are eligible, you will be invited to a confidential one-on-one online interview lasting about 90-120 minutes. During the interview, you would describe a real descent or approach automation event you personally experienced—for example, an unexpected mode change, an AFCS (FMA, MCP, FMS) misunderstanding, or a situation where the automation did not do what you expected. Then, we finish the interview with a scenario-based activity, where you'll be shown prototypes and asked to reflect about them and collaboration with future autonomous systems.

I am looking for current or former pilots with experience on Airbus, Boeing, or comparable aircraft equipped with advanced automation and IFR capability. You do not need to have experienced an accident or reportable event. Challenging experiences, near-misses, and moments where the automation behaved differently than expected are all valuable.

Eligible participants will receive 150$ CAD for completing the interview. The study is fully online and confidential, and it has been approved by University Research Ethics Board/Committee.

Link: SUBSCRIPTION FORM – Remplir le formulaire

Once the research is complete, I will post a follow-up summary of the main findings for the community. Thanks for reading, and feel free to ask questions here or contact me directly.

Have my commercial written in a few days. I used Sheppard to study. Been hearing that the writtens are changing? How so?

What's the deal with Auckland airport? They have only one runway but it's called 05R/23L. It's been like this for more than 20 years.

Hi all,

Just a quick disclaimer: Just asking out of curiosity, I just want to hear from people who have experience in the field.

A bit about me:

• 23, based in the UK
• Studied Computer Science, working as a backend engineer for just about 2 years
• Fluent in Spanish as I was born in Spain and lived there up until I was 15, I hold a spanish passport
• Zero flying experience (planning a trial lesson to see if I enjoy it)

I've been looking at fully funded schemes such as BA Speedbird, Jet2FlightPath and Aer Lingus, and it's got me thinking. A few questions for those of you in training or already flying

1. AI Automation - How are pilots affected by AI?
2. Work life balance - What is it like day to day? How much time do you spend away from home? How much control do you have over your schedule compared to a 9-5?
3. Social Life - How do you manage plans with friends, family or a partner?
4. Switching from tech - Anyone moved from a tech job or office job into flying? Any regrets?
5. Funded schemes - How realistic is it to get in?
6. Does being bilingual help? Would it be an advantage in any airlines?

Thank you for answering

New student pilot here starting my pilot journey at age 50, 7 hrs into flight training. For making the right radio calls, my CFI taught me the formula - You-Me-Where-With-What, I like the formula to build out the right radio call where ever I am and for whatever I'm doing. But to start with to make things less onerous, I want to memorize these calls by first writing them down on my pad, but my CFI hates this method and discourages me from doing it. He says I'll end up just memorizing them and not understanding the meaning of those calls (like I'm a 6 yrs old). I train in a non towered airport, so the calls are generally very simple but they can get complicated for the 4mile call while coming in for landing. I asked him for a written script, but he refuses to give it. He wants me to repeat after him while we are in the air and then make the call which honestly i mess up because i end up using my own words instead of using the exact words he said. eg. for the 10mi. call , i said "aiport name traffic-skyhawk..., 10mi. NW, approaching runway 8" instead of inbound runway 8 as he had asked me to say. This has been a constant friction with him about not getting everything in writing and instead having to wing it based on what he is saying. Am i setting myself up for failure by writing and memorizing radio calls at least for the first 20 hrs before I get comfortable making them on the fly based on the situation.

For a direct driven naturally aspirated engine. Suppose I choose to cruise at 5,500 at 2500rpm. I get to cruise and start leaning. So throttle set to 2500. As I lean RPM increases (as expected) but now the rpm is approaching the red line. I know I’m not peak yet because the engine hasn’t ran rough yet. What’s the appropriate action? Do I lean until it goes above red line or do I reduce throttle back to 2500 or at least below red line and keep on leaning?

I am a few hours aways from reaching 250 hours and will start training for CPL after getting my instrument rating in a few months. With the holidays coming up things will be slow at my day job so I figured I’d take advantage of it by focusing on the CAX written around Thanksgiving with Sheppard as I did for IRA. I am not expecting to start training for CPL until probably January though (after whenever I take my IR checkride).

Will my DPE care if I took the written exam months before the checkride even though they are valid for 2 years, or do they just care about the score and deficiencies?

I also took my FII right after IRA last month.

Just trying to make sure I understand the function of the trim tab. So far in my flight training, I've used the trim tab to stabilize the aircraft in a certain attitude without the constant need to maintain pressure on the controls.

However I do often hear these two expressions thrown around here and there: trim for speed or trim for attitude. What does that exactly mean?

Let's say if I am at cruise with 100 KIAS and I'm trimmed. If I were to push on the controls to pitch down and then let go, the trim for speed refers to the fact that my aircraft will return to 100 KIAS by itself when I let go of the controls? Am I understanding this correctly?

I have been looking online for a photo of a Piper PA-32-260 takeoff performance chart and have been unable to find anything. If anyone has one on hand, could you take a photo of it? That would be much appreciated. Thanks.

The flight school’s Piper Archer that I’m flying used to have an audible chime that sounded 100 feet before reaching the altitude set with the altitude bug.

However, after an avionics upgrade to a Garmin GTN 650, the chime no longer works. Is this something that can be restored through programming or configuration? I don’t remember which navigator was installed previously, since the upgrade happened about nine months ago.

Now that I’m doing IFR training, I’d really like to have that altitude alert back.

Also, assuming we can get the chime working again, is there a way to configure it to sound 100 feet before reaching a step-down altitude during an instrument approach?

I find it so disgusting the flight schools and CFI who take advantage of students! Its NOT OKAY that you have students spending money and youre holding off signing them off because you want them to waste their money and build your hours on them.

AS A CFI, HAVE SOME INTEGRITY. So disgusted.

reading is fundamental and you guys should read before responding. This is what i am seeing with other CFI and students at the school i work at!!! Not about me.

Results: passed

Scenario: examiner asked me to prepare a scenario of a student pilot and commercial pilot about 5 days before the test. The scenario was teaching a student pilot principles and fundamentals of flight, stalls and spins, performance and w/b + cross country flight planning and how to use to E6B whizz wheel. I was also asked to be prepared to teach a commercial pilot maneuver of the examiners choice (I got 8s on pylons) I was then asked by the examiner to create a plan of action of how to conduct the checkride using the required items of the ACS as well as prepare sample logbook entries for the training flight

Ground: (about 4hrs)
- IACRA and paperwork first
- I then walked the examiner through endorsements I needed to prove I was eligible to take the test and what we should be looking for. Endorsements were pretty straight forward and I had alot of the regs memorized around this but had 61-65k ready if needed along with a tabbed out far aim
- next was walking the DPE through airworthiness. My plane had a lot of STCs so be prepared how to use and read those as well as airworthiness directives and any instructions for continued airworthiness. But overall quick and painless on that part. Remember the altimeter check is only for IFR flight. My plane is used for VFR only so we didn’t have that in the logs
- next was principles of flight (the key is to keep it understandable to the student pilot level yet detailed and correct at the same time to cover all the ACS topics, this lesson is a monster - I used effective communication,found common ground with my simulated student, and used a combination of the phak, whiteboard, videos, and drawings. I was checking for understanding and making it easy for the “student” to understand how to fly the airplane and what was going on to keep them safe (basically always be incorporating the FOIs from the start into real life practicality) (time - about 45 min on this)
- next was weight and balance. Pretty straight forward and asked some questions on stability but no big deal
- after that was xc planning on which I used the paper charts and taught the student how to use the chart - resources for getting symbols as well as how to figure out longitude and latitude cause that’s a question of the ppl written - as well as how to get a weather brief. He had some questions on this to try trip me up but I answered them.
- we talked about runway incursions (keep it simple here to not burn up too much time) and spin recovery, for spin recovery I built upon my principles of flight lesson for my simulated student and showed him a video of a student pilot on YouTube accidentally getting into a spin and what the student did wrong (I saved this for last because it’s hard to explain this without a base understanding of what’s going on aerodynamically). This is where I went the most in depth about the aerodynamics and included things like how a spin happens, adverse yaw, differences in lift and AOA on each wing, and why we use the PARE acronym and emphasized to my “student” that if he flies a different plane look at the POH because spin recovery isn’t the same for each plane. At the end of the day if you stay coordinated and always lower the AOA first you won’t spin. I emphasized to my “student” we don’t use ailerons first if a wing drops and keep the ball in the center.
- finally was the 8s on pylons lesson. I showed the examiner a video of me with meta glasses doing the maneuver and the purpose of it and a whiteboard drawing and the AFH description on it. He had some questions but overall pretty straight forward. Don’t forget common errors here.

Flight portion (1.5): the examiner asked me what my plan was to knock out all the maneuvers of the ACS. For the flight keep it slow and make sure you do everything. Take your time and demonstrate a good example for your student of airmanship.

- soft field takeoff (examiner flew this and I critiqued) - he screwed it up on purpose.
- fundamentals of flight: straight climbs, turns, and descents ( i demoed and examiner flew some of this and I coached him) - he screwed this up on purpose too and I had to coach him
- maneuvering during slow flight, power off stalls, and cross controlled stalls (examiner did slow flight and I coached him) - he screwed it up on purpose by death gripping and getting uncoordinated
- emergency descent and engine failure simulated approach to landing
- 8s on pylons and Turns around a point (examiner flew a turn around a point and I coached him) - he got off his altitude and I coached him
- chandelles and steep turns (I flew both)
- straight and level flight sim instrument - I flew
- soft field landing into a touch and go - then short field landing full stop

Overall a long day but not too bad. I’m overall stoked to have this rating. Onto CFII and then multi

Some people fight for every flying lesson, working hard and paying their own way. Others have everything handed to them and still don’t appreciate the responsibility that comes with teaching others.
The hardest part of getting my licence wasn’t learning to fly—it was dealing with one instructor who treated students like an inconvenience while those students were paying thousands of dollars and putting their trust in them.
When you’re chasing a licence, you often stay quiet because you don’t want to jeopardise your progress. Looking back, that’s exactly why poor instructors get away with it.
Thankfully, licences are earned, not gifted. ✈️

Hi! I’m a 23-year-old guy currently studying at university. After completing my degree, I plan to attend a flight school in the US. I want to know what subjects and courses are taught during flight training, starting with the SPL and PPL, so I can study and practice on my own whenever I have free time.
On a side note, I come from an aviation family. My great-grandfather was an aircraft mechanic, my grandfather was a flight engineer on the Boeing 747, and my dad completed his flight training in Oklahoma.my dads brother also followed the same path.
I’ve grown up around aviation, so I already have some knowledge of the field and a genuine passion for aircraft. I’d love to start preparing myself academically before beginning my formal flight training

Got the ATM written this week and was wondering what the FAA changed about the written? No more Sheppard air rote memorization? lol, thanks 🙏

Hi everyone, I’ve been recently selected for the December 2026 intake of Air Arabia’s MPL programme and have a few questions for people who have already joined previous batches:
-Is there a specific date by which we must arrive in the UAE before the commencement date?
-Is an iPad provided by the academy or are we expected to purchase our own?
-Are there scheduled holidays or breaks during the two years at the academy? Also what does a typical week look like?

I have my PPL checkride coming up, and my DPE assigned a cross-country scenario involving flying three occupants to (KHHR) Hawthorne, picking up a fourth passenger and additional baggage, and continuing to San Diego (KMYF).

After calculating weight and balance in my PA-28-161, I determined that carrying everyone would limit me to approximately 15.5 gallons of usable fuel at maximum gross weight.

My planned second leg would leave me about 8 minutes below my personal minimum of 45-minute fuel reserve. I considered reducing fuel, adding a fuel stop, and changing the routing, but I don’t believe those compromises are justified for a recreational flight.

My preferred PIC decision would be to have the fourth passenger arrange alternate transportation and fly directly to San Diego with the original three occupants.

I’m planning to bring the original scenario’s calculations along with a complete alternative flight plan.

For DPEs or applicants who’ve encountered something similar: Would you consider this good ADM, or would you expect the applicant to fully plan and present the original itinerary regardless of whether they would actually fly it?

I’m not trying to avoid the assignment due to the complexity of the airspace or just by being stubborn. I want to demonstrate that I evaluated it and made a deliberate safety decision.

As a private pilot flying purely for pleasure in the UK, would you recommend getting the IMC Rating first and then progressing to a CB-IR, or going straight for the IR?

Also, is it better to get the Night Rating before or after instrument training?

Thanks!

Hello all I have my check ride on November 6th I have about 90 hours in a Cessna 172 Mike model when I first started flying almost 2 years ago the plane was all suction gauge except for the Attitude indicator which is a G5. A few months ago the plane was out for a long time getting a Garmin GFC500 autopilot, EDM 830 engine monitor, and a G5 HSI. I have had a couple of multiple month breaks from flying due to one being a left shoulder injury, which prevented me raising my left arm, which is not great for flying lol. And also another break for a while. The new interface were getting installed. One of my instructors other students just took a check ride with the same DPE that I will have. I just got on the phone with him for a couple hours and asked him about everything that they discussed and he gave me a full rundown and I took notes on that. I feel like even with all of my hours. I’m still not great at Soft and short field landings. Does anyone have any tips overall for things that I should 100% know for the oral section and any hacks or things to remember for the flying portion that may have caught you off guard in a check ride?

(More of an observation than a complaint): I’ve noticed over the last few years that flight schools in my area (DMV) are increasingly making it more difficult to rent an aircraft without an instructor. Within the last month, the two flight schools I rent out of have implemented polices like:

•No night flights without permission
•No flights without an instructor without permission from management (we have to fill out a reservation request now via a google form)
•Students flying with instructors have the priority (renters can get booted out so a student can take the plane)
•Must pay a minimum of 1hr of instruction for a mandatory “dispatch” before every flight

These are just to name a few. And look, I get it— renters are more of a liability. These are simply safety policies. But I haven’t been able to find a “renter friendly” place that doesn’t make your life hell just to do a few laps in the pattern. I’ve only been in this industry for ~5 years and I’ve seen some pretty big changes since. I’m just trying to time build without paying ungodly instructor fees.

Flight clubs as well are telling pilots they aren’t interested in letting you in if you are time building. Any idea why this is? Just food for thought.

I also feel this may be related to the rise in 141 flight schools, since it seems like the FAA is trying to phase out part 61.