Higher education. For every stage of flight.
Understand aviation.
Prepare for your
next lesson.
Free aviation references, customizable lesson plans, and training syllabi for student pilots and flight instructors.
Choose your Next Step
Learn a flight-training topic
Prepare for your next lesson with clear explanations and source references.
Choose a topic →
Prepare for a checkride
Review the knowledge and tasks for your certificate or rating.
Choose my preparation hub →
Prepare to teach
Build your next ground or flight lesson with structured plans and references.
Find a lesson plan →Trivia of the Day
Trivia rolls over daily at midnight, Mountain Standard Time.
Private Pilot Question of the Day
For the actual water conditions, the aircraft procedure recommends contact at 48 knots in the specified landing attitude. Near contact, the pilot is at 57 knots and lowering the nose to force the floats onto the water. What should happen?
Restore the recommended speed and proper surface-appropriate pitch attitude if it can be done safely; otherwise go around rather than force contact.
Commercial Pilot Question of the Day
A fictional training AD applies to Model T airplanes, serials 100 through 199 inclusive, with rail assembly P installed. It requires inspection every 100 hours time in service unless assembly Q is installed as terminating action. The airplane is Model T serial 150, assembly P; the log records compliance at 3,120 hours and no terminating action or approved alternative. Current time in service is 3,217 hours. Which assessment is correct for a planned five-hour flight?
The AD applies and is next due at 3,220 hours; do not dispatch the five-hour flight through that limit without compliance.
Instrument Rating Question of the Day
What makes a go-around or rejected landing especially hazardous after an engine failure in a multiengine helicopter?
Power and climb margin may be limited or nonexistent, configuration changes can increase drag or workload, directional control and rotor RPM must be protected, and obstacles may make the escape path unusable. The pilot must know RFM OEI go-around or rejected-landing capability and limits, make the decision early, use the approved configuration and airspeed, and avoid attempting a maneuver the helicopter cannot perform under the actual weight and environmental conditions.
Sport Pilot Question of the Day
The available ground power unit has a connector that fits, but its voltage or polarity has not been confirmed. Is it ready to use?
No. Verify compatibility and the approved procedure before connecting or energizing it. Connector fit alone does not establish correct voltage, polarity, or suitability.
Flight Instructor Question of the Day
What transponder code should a pilot select after losing two-way radio communications?
Code 7600, after appropriate attempts to reestablish two-way communication are unsuccessful.
Flight Instructor Instrument Question of the Day
How can visualization be used in scenario-based flight training?
Have the learner mentally fly and describe a realistic operation, then introduce plausible changes and question the learner's decisions without making the scenario unrealistically burdensome.
Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Question of the Day
With temperature and humidity unchanged, how does a decrease in atmospheric pressure affect air density and density altitude?
Air density decreases and density altitude increases.
Advice of the Day
Maintain a consistent flight training schedule. Long breaks in any kind of training, but especially aviation, will cause a dramatic loss of progress.
System of the Day
Cabin Heating and Cooling Systems: Cabin Heating and cooling systems provide conditioned air for comfortable operations during various weather conditions
Maneuver of the Day
Straight And Turning Climbs: Straight and turning climbs demonstrate basic airmanship necessary to conduct climb and departure procedures.
Emergency of the Day
Engine Failure: The total loss of power requires immediate actions which depend upon speed (life) and altitude (life insurance)
Mishap of the Day
ERA14LA450: The NTSB determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be: The pilot's inadequate preflight planning, which resulted in a takeoff with the airplane's center of gravity aft of its limit and led the airplane to exceed its critical angle of attack and experience an aerodynamic stall during the initial climb.
