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IFR pilots (or applicants on practical tests with me) will readily tell me the different types of VOR checks available, and many will even be able to find designated points they can use, but fewer apply some of the more practical questions related to VOR tests for IFR navigation.

Let’s assume you remember the types of tests you can do (dual, FAA designated check points of which there are a couple options, and having an avionics shop check the devices being the most common methods) and that you also recall that when you do a check you have to log where it was done, when it was completed, who did the test, and the error that was present (if any) to prove it has been done within the preceding 30-days.

From here, let’s ask a question.

Most pilots do “dual VOR checks” as the most common method of testing. For this test, in the air, an allowable difference of no more than 4-degrees is required to be useable. Ok, most of you are with me so far. But, and here is the question.

What if the error between the two VORs is depicting a 6-degree difference? Continue reading →

The FAA has released final rules that offer changes to training and pilot certification requirements that will offer new flexibility in flight training and certification provision.

The biggest change that will affect most flight training providers is the matching of recently changed Airman Certification Standards (ACS) that removed requirements for demonstration of use of a complex aircraft on single engine commercial and CFI practical tests with the regulatory requirements for training. The new rule offers an alternative to meet the previously required 10-hours of complex aircraft training to be met by “any combination of turbine-powered, complex, OR technically advanced aircraft” (TAA). A TAA aircraft is defined as an aircraft that has “an electric Primary Flight Display (PFD) that includes at a minimum, an airspeed indicator, turn coordinator, attitude indicator, heading indicator, altimeter, and vertical speed indicator and an electronic Multifunction Display (MFD) that includes at a minimum, a moving map using Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation with the aircraft position displayed, and a two-axis autopilot integrated with the navigation and heading guidance system.”

The gist here is that most modern aircraft with two-glass panel displays and autopilots will now be acceptable to meet the training requirements for single-engine commercial and CFI pilot training and no longer require time to be spent in an aircraft with a retractable gear. Continue reading →