Plastic Pilot

Each bad weather day is an opportunity for pilots to refresh theoretical knowledge. This sounds boring, and if you trained using JAA standardised books, they are probably more academic than friendly.

My tip for your next bad weather day is to look at what FAA provides. I don’t know if all US pilots use the FAA Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, but compared to the books I used to prepare my PPL, this FAA stuff is really good.

The 15 first chapters cover subjects corresponding to the 8 JAA topics (Air Law, Aircraft Knowledge, Flight Planning and Performance, Navigation, Principle of Flight, Meteorology, Human Performance, Operational Procedures).

My favorite chapter is Chapter 16 - Aeronautical Decision Making. It covers topic like how we make decisions, risk management, and so on. There are also some interesting mnemonics, like IMSAFE and DECIDE. Read chapter 16 to know what they mean…

I already posted about other good books to refresh your theory, but the FAA handbook has two major advantages over them. You can download it, and it’s available for free !