Flying is not exactly a cheap activity – so here are some free resources, from me an others, which I personally use.

ICAO Flightplan in Microsoft Excel format

I created this ICAO flight plan form to facilitate my flight planning, and to avoid problems with my rather cryptic handwriting when I fax flight plans to AIM services. I used it in Switzerland, France, and UK, and never had any negative remark. If you use it somewhere else, I’d appreciate some feedback.

Click here to download my free Excel ICAO flight plan form.

Depending your excel version and printer, you might have to adjust the size of some cells, or use the “zoom to fit” function to make sure it prints on a single page.

JAA compliant logbook in Microsoft Excel format

As all pilots, I keep track of my flying activities in a paper logbook. SEP, MEP, single pilot, multi pilot, night, IFR, PIC, Dual, number of days and night landings, and so on. Filling my logbook, and doing the intermediate totals at the end of each page is not the funniest part of aviation.

To eased it a bit, I developped this Microsoft Excel Logbook. To add a new flight, simply fill-up the line on top, and click the left top button. The macro will automatically add a new line at the bottom. All time columns in which you put an “X” will contain the difference between departure and arrival time. Put something else in a column, and it will be copied as is. This is for flights partially at night, or partially IFR. If this sounds too complicated, you can simply add each flight manually, and use the totalizers.

Click here to download my free Excel JAA logbook.

Pilot briefing made easy and free

I always missed a website offering NOTAMs, METARs, TAFs, and weather charts for free, without login, or other complications. So I made one myself. You can visit it under www.easymetar.com. It also contains links to other flight planning resources, including online AIPs for the countries where they exist.

Free JAA ATPL questions database

If you’re an ATPL student in Europe, you know first hand how painful the theoretical exams are. A non-negligible part of the information you have to memorize is not exactly useful in flight. When getting through that process for my IFR rating, I lost a couple of point in the navigation exam, because I did not knew how many atomic-clock are on-board each GPS sattelite.

Nowadays, many services offer online question databases for practice, which are all more or less “inspired” from the exam questions. Most of them require registration and / or a fee. However, I recently stumbled upon an online list of questions, with their answers.

I browsed it, and on the base of my own experience, In can confirm that these questions are extremely similar to the ones you’ll find in the exams. The only missing thing is the list of possible answers, only the correct one is provided.

Click here to visit the free ATPL questions database.

Learn to fly e-book from Max Trescott

Max is a well known US instructor, aviation advocate and the 2008 National Certificated Flight Instructor of the Year. Quoting him: “As pilots know, learning to fly is non-trivial. Many express the desire to learn to fly, yet few actually accomplish the goal. One reason is that it’s not easy for a neophyte to figure out what to do to earn a pilot certificate. To help with the problem, I’ve created a free new Learn to Fly ebook.”

Click here to read the full post on Max’s blog.

Radio-navigation trainer

Click here to visit Tim’s Radio Navigation trainer. This Java applet is one of the best tools I know for VOR and ADF training. It can simulate all possible instruments (VOR, HSI, RMI, RBI). You can move the plane or the stations around, fly the plane and observe how the instruments react. Its random positioning feature is great to practice orientation from an unknown position.

Do you have more ?

If you know some other freebies for pilots that you want to share, please contact me, I’ll be happy to list them here.

By the way…

The Archives of this blog are full of contents that you can read for free.

If you’re lookin for reference documents, you landed at the correct place. You’ll find here information about aircraft accidents, but also training and safety related documents. You can also download user manuals for various avionics equipment.

Feel free to contact me if you have other documents that should be added here.

Accidents - BA038

	download: First AAIB info (356.75KB) clicks: 334 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 334

	download: Second AAIB Info (308.92KB) clicks: 249 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 249

	download: Third AAIB Info (254.61KB) clicks: 249 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 249

	download: Fourth AAIB info (988.63KB) clicks: 284 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 284

	download: BA038 - NTSB recommendations to FAA (413.56KB) clicks: 212 added: 11/03/2009 clicks: 212
Recommendations from the NTSB to the FAA following the crash-landing and loss of power of the BA038 777 in Heathrow.

Accidents - Concorde

	download: Preliminary information (3.71MB) clicks: 339 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 339

	download: First intermediary information (748.76KB) clicks: 209 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 209

	download: Final report (15.99MB) clicks: 297 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 297

	download: Second intermediary information (6.41MB) clicks: 239 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 239

Accidents - Various

	download: AirFrance Airbus A340 Crash Landing in Toronto (4.56MB) clicks: 308 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 308

	download: Airbus 300 lands after being hit by a missile in Baghdad (3.68MB) clicks: 269 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 269

	download: Boeing 747 landing short in fog in Frankfurt (3.23MB) clicks: 299 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 299

	download: Swissair 111 MD-11 crash in Peggy's Cove (31.62MB) clicks: 303 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 303

	download: Uberlingen Mid-Air collision (3.99MB) clicks: 303 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 303

	download: Cockpit Voice Recorder transcript of Colgan 3407 (220.83KB) clicks: 570 added: 12/05/2009 clicks: 570
Transcription of pilots discussions recorded by the CVR on Colgan (Continental) 3407 which crashed near Buffalo

	download: Spanair accident in Madrid - Interim report (4.92MB) clicks: 84 added: 08/09/2009 clicks: 84

Legal

	download: JAR Flight Crew Licensing (JAR-FCL1) (3.35MB) clicks: 397 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 397

G1000

	download: G1000 Instructor's reference (Non-airframe specific) (1.64MB) clicks: 821 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 821

	download: G1000 Trainer User's guide (Non-airframe specific) (788.38KB) clicks: 406 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 406

DA-40

	download: DA-40 AFM Supplement for G1000 - IFR (561.88KB) clicks: 290 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 290

	download: DA-40 AFM Supplement for G1000 - VFR (524.78KB) clicks: 267 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 267

	download: DA-40 AFM Supplement for KAP 140 Autopilot (728.75KB) clicks: 644 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 644

	download: DA-40 AFM (Aircraft Flight Manual) (3.37MB) clicks: 353 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 353

	download: DA-40 TDI G1000 Checklists (241.95KB) clicks: 253 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 253

	download: G1000 DA40D Cockpit Reference (2.78MB) clicks: 272 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 272

	download: G1000 DA40 Cockpit Reference (4.33MB) clicks: 270 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 270

	download: G1000 DA40 pilot's guide (15.25MB) clicks: 314 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 314

Avionics

	download: KAP 140 Autpilot - Pilot's user manual (6.79MB) clicks: 476 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 476

	download: KFC 150 Autpilot - Pilot's user manual (21.72MB) clicks: 324 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 324

	download: Garmin GPS 96C Owner's manual (8.66MB) clicks: 280 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 280

Safety

	download: Go-Arounds (Flight Safety Australia) (569.99KB) clicks: 398 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 398

	download: Recommendation on rocket activated parachutes (NTSB) (449.24KB) clicks: 304 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 304

	download: Spin Stall Parachute Recovery Systems (1.69MB) clicks: 288 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 288

Procedures

	download: Continuous descent approaches for non-aviation audience (CAA) (523.84KB) clicks: 373 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 373

	download: Continuous descent approaches (Eurocontrol) (1.30MB) clicks: 1726 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 1726

FAA Aircraft Flying Handbook

	download: Chapters 1-3 (2.73MB) clicks: 365 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 365

	download: Chapters 4-6 (2.85MB) clicks: 305 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 305

	download: Chapters 7-9 (2.82MB) clicks: 254 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 254

	download: Chapters 10-12 (2.47MB) clicks: 312 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 312

	download: Chapters 13-15 (2.67MB) clicks: 328 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 328

	download: Chapter 16 (1.23MB) clicks: 293 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 293

	download: Cover page (449.37KB) clicks: 316 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 316

JAA IFR Learning Objectives

	download: 010 - Air Law (116.87KB) clicks: 410 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 410

	download: 021 - Aircrafts Systems - Powerplants (44.19KB) clicks: 384 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 384

	download: 022 - Instruments (46.78KB) clicks: 482 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 482

	download: 033 - Flight Planning & Monitoring (52.38KB) clicks: 415 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 415

	download: 040 - Human performances & limitations (46.10KB) clicks: 332 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 332

	download: 050 - Meteorology (101.07KB) clicks: 360 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 360

	download: 061 - General navigation (8.92KB) clicks: 313 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 313

	download: 062 - Radio-navigation (90.98KB) clicks: 348 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 348

	download: 070 - Operational procedures (13.10KB) clicks: 437 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 437

	download: 090 - Communications (21.60KB) clicks: 359 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 359

Technics

	download: Maintenance guide for Engineers (CASA) (4.55MB) clicks: 309 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 309

	download: Digital Flight Data Recorders (French BEA) (960.86KB) clicks: 1422 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 1422

	download: MEMS gyros (310.55KB) clicks: 274 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 274

Training

	download: FAA Student Pilots Guide (244.11KB) clicks: 410 added: 14/11/2008 clicks: 410

Garmin Simulators

	download: Garmin GNS 430 - 530 Simulator (181.72MB) clicks: 679 added: 16/11/2008 clicks: 679

Misc

	download: Learn to fly e-book (1.94MB) clicks: 446 added: 30/12/2008 clicks: 446
A free e-book from instructor Max Trescott. It adresses many question that pilots to be have, from "is it possible" to "where is the best place", and much more.