Warbird Information Exchange

Hello,

I started doing some studying to prepair me for my flight lessons. Currently got my Phonetic alphabet and military time down pretty good. Was wondering what kind of math I should start studying? Also should I refresh up on weather and radio frequencies?

Any and all help would be apprisiated!

Thanks,
Nathan

Wind correction angles would be helpful.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Find someone to help you visualize the effects of wind on flight, and try to get into a mindset of thinking which directions the winds are coming from. That's been the hardest thing for me to react to properly, and if you fly light planes, it's one of the harder factors to adjust for on landings, during navigation, and in flight planning.
Also, ask around and find out who the best radio instructor is around you, and talk to him. Try to get him to help you write some cheat sheets that remind you about what calls you need to make and when, as well as where. Basically try to minimize the workload once you actually start taking the flight lessons (ie. not scrambling to try and write down information when you should be turning base and final, or doing some manuever), and make it easier for yourself to fly the airplane, without being distracted by the peripherals. My instructor made a custom sheet for me early on where I could just fill in the form, and keep working. I learned in Class C airspace, and just this weekend went into Class B airspace with minimal difficulties on the radio, apart from a bad connection that caused some static!
Remember - Aviate, Navigate, Communicate is the order of priorities.

Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Get an old manual E6B and plotter along with the book for it and get to practicing so that you can do all the plotting and conversion and calculations without hesitation and practice until you can do them without the instructions.Then practice running your whiz wheel one handed until it becomes second nature.

Lest there be some naysayers....a manual wheel will never let you down or have flat batteries just as you punch into zero vis in rapidly declining light with a sudden 100% electrical failure in the cockpit.

a trick that I used to remember winds is if I was NOT using the VORs, is to set the wind direction on one VOR head, and speed on the other.

it worked for me.

I think that at this point in your pre-training, you would benefit greatly from reading Langewiesche's book Stick and Rudder, which is still by far the best book on basic light piston aircraft flight ever written.

Thanks guys. I don't have the manual, but I do have a plotter. Now, if I can only find it.....

First, I 2nd randy's call on the stick and rudder book.. very nice,
very much a classic and gets you thinking of how things work.

I also 2nd the E6B wheel.. you can by one rather inexpensively from
SPORTY's or a local aviation supply store, the manual that will come
with it and is pretty easy to read and figure out with a little attention
paid to it. Kindof a neat tool really - hard to imagine its so old at
this point. Now this is fine, but after awhile you need to get onto the
weather and other fun stuff other than math.. so...

3rd.. one thing I recommend, is get Jeppesen's private pilot handbook,
its pricey but sometimes can also be found in used bookstores. Its a
thick beast but chocked full of info thats meant to be readable. New
its almost $80, but I've seen used one's for 50. recently.

and if you want to learn the Regulations, you'll eventually get a copy
of the FAR/AIM (federal air regulations/airmans instruction manual)
that is the gov. book of rules followed by the airmans handbook..
now its not really the most readable beast but it is full of info.. and its
not that bad 10-15$ or so.. guaraunteed to put one to sleep.

http://www.sportys.com or http://www.avshop.com are a couple
of folks I've done business with in the past and they've been fine.

ps. the FAA at one time had some useful books online in adobe acrobat
format (.pdf) that you could download for free (and th at you can also
buy a paper copy from the folks above as well). These handbooks
were actually pretty well written and there's one for private, instrument,
and other kinds of study. I had these on my laptop at one point and
read them on some of my trips. I used the instrument one for helping
me with my inst. rating and it was pretty well done.

hope this helps,

henning

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"The best way to control the future is to create it".