After more than 30 years of guiding pilots through their check rides, the work of author Michael Hayes is expanded by the capable hands of Jason Blair. A distinguished figure in the aviation community and periodic contributor to Plane & Pilot, Blair brings extensive experience as an active single- and multiengine instructor and FAA Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE), having issued more than 1,000 pilot certificates.

The 11th edition aligns seamlessly with the Airman Certification Standards (ACS), ensuring that it meets the latest industry standards and regulations. The guide adopts a user-friendly, Q&A format, presenting the most likely questions evaluators may pose during the practical exam. In addition to concise responses, FAA references are strategically incorporated, allowing for further in-depth study.

One of the significant highlights of this edition is the expanded content covering pilot regulations, airworthiness, weather, airplane systems, emergency procedures, performance and limitations, cross-country flight, human factors, flight maneuvers, and scenario-based training. This holistic approach makes the Commercial Pilot Oral Exam Guide not only a key preparation tool for a check ride but also a valuable general refresher for seasoned pilots.

Measuring 5.25-by-8.25 inches and spanning 352 pages, the guide comes in a convenient softcover format. The user-friendly layout and comprehensive content make it an ideal study companion for those pursuing a commercial pilot certificate.

Aviation learners and professionals can find the Commercial Pilot Oral Exam Guide at their local FBO, preferred online retailers, or directly on the ASA website. Whether you’re embarking on your journey to become a commercial pilot or seeking to enhance your existing knowledge, this latest edition can become an essential companion in mastering the skies.

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Leather iPad Bag

This bag is a protective carrier for your flight electronics. It also organizes all the gear that come with tablets and EFBs. It’s made with jacket-quality leather for durability, and it has the Microsoft Simulator logo embroidered on the front. Its compact design helps it fit snugly in between seats. It has quick-access pockets for other gear, like flashlight, charts or a fuel tester. A water bottle holder is a convenient feature, as is the organizer pocket that can hold a cell phone, pens, your ID cards and more. It comes with a soft carrying handle and a shoulder strap, as well.

Price: $169.95  Available at: www.sportys.com

General Aviation Short-Sleeved Shirt

Sporty’s Wright Bros. Collection showcases fashion pieces that are tributes to our flying pioneers. This General Aviation Short-Sleeved Shirt is comfortable—made with four-sided, stretch, easy-care fabric. An all-over design of classic white airplanes, light-blue propellers and dark-blue pilot wings pops against a blue background. With a button-down collar and a left-chest pocket, it’s perfect to wear to dressy and casual occasions alike.

Price: Starts at $32.99  Available at: www.sportys.com

Stadia AGL LIDAR Landing Altimeter

Using LIDAR to measure the aircraft’s height above the ground, Stadia is an AGL landing altimeter that’s a practical addition to any aircraft. It connects to a smartphone through Bluetooth and notifies the pilot of their altitude with visual and audible cues. The alerting sounds increase in frequency as the aircraft’s height decreases. It has a maximum altitude of 130 feet and a rechargeable battery life of up to 12 hours.

Price: $545  Available at: www.aircraftspruce.com

Navigating Weather

One of ASA’s newest titles for 2022 is Dr. David Ison’s “Navigating Weather,” a comprehensive guide to the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to operate both airborne and datalink weather radar. Dr. Ison maintains a focus on real-world application of radar operation and interpretation, from radar and severe weather theory to attributes of inclement weather phenomena, how they’re detected and how pilots can evaluate conditions through radar sources available to them. Using example scenarios, essentials such as attenuation, tilt management, contouring and gain are discussed. Other advanced features are also included, like auto-tilt, turbulence detection, wind shear warning systems and terrain mapping. Each chapter contains case examples, concept questions to test understanding and sample storylines to assess a pilot’s evaluation skills.

Price: $39.95. Available at: www.asa2fly.com

Rope Chocks

Designed for ideal use with small- to-medium-sized aircraft, Rope Chocks prevent movement or rolling because of uneven terrain or environmental factors such as wind. Despite their light weight at only 1.5 pounds each, they don’t rattle on the ground or in the air and are resistant to weather, lubricants and oils. They’re also suitable for securing other kinds of vehicles, trailers, equipment or anything with tires or wheels. They’re highly visible because of their color scheme and are easy to store. Available to purchase singly or as a set of two.

Price: $79 for a set of two with storage bag  Available at: www.aircraftspruce.com

Long Wind-ed Socks

These humorous aviation-themed socks from Pilot Expressions are made with a breathable blend of bamboo, polyester and spandex. The design is woven right into the fabric instead of being simply printed on, which means the bottoms won’t stick to surfaces or retain heat from plastic printing, and the color will remain vibrant even over repeated use. They come in black and in one size that fits most.

Price: $12.99  Available at: www.etsy.com/shop/PilotExpressions

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The Complete Multi-Engine Pilot, New Edition

ASA has just released the fifth edition of Bob Gardner’s guide for pilots learning multi-engine flying. The Complete Multi-Engine Pilot textbook includes a new chapter on energy management and information on obtaining the multi-engine rating and checking out in a new twin. An integrated flight and ground syllabus outlines the rating program, with a sample written test that’s a helpful guide to the ones typically used for new-aircraft checkouts. It also comes with a complete library of FAA source material on multi-engine flight subjects. The Complete Pilot Series was written to complement training materials in flight schools, for home study and as a starting point for student kits. It has a soft cover, measures 8.25 x 10.75 inches, and is illustrated with 200 pages. It’s also available as a digital e-book and as part of a discounted e-bundle.

Price: $24.95. Available at asa2fly.com.

Dual Eyewear SL2 Sunglasses With Readers

A good pair of sunglasses that won’t reduce visibility is essential for pilots. This featherweight “Super Leggero” (Super Light) pair from Dual Eyewear weighs only 20 grams. Its non-polarized lenses are made of shatterproof and scratch-resistant polycarbonate. The Grilamid TR-90 frames are impact-, chemical- and UV-damage resistant, and the slim profile makes for an easy fit under a headset’s ear seals. Non-slip rubber nosepieces and arm inserts keep the pair in place. It offers 100% UVA, UVB and UVC protection, and the +1.5. +2.0 or +2.5 diopters reduce distortion and fatigue.

Price: $64.95. Available at sportys.com.

Hangarbot Smart Hangar And Monitoring System

This all-in-one security system allows pilots to monitor their hangars closely, along with the ability to open and close doors remotely. The bundle includes two LynkGuard Smart Security Cameras, one HangarBot 4G Hub and one HangarBot Door Controller. It’s especially useful for those who rent or share hangars. The waterproof camera captures activity during automated door opening and closing and provides additional internal hangar viewpoints. The Door Controller is compatible with nearly all electric and hydraulic industrial doors. An app on your smartphone downloads video information and manages all the important functions for the system.

Price: $1,696. Available at aircraftspruce.com.

Flight Gear USB Slimline Charger

The aluminum-constructed Flight Gear Slimline Charger has a USB type-A port that provides quick-charge capability with up to 3.6 amps at 5 volts. It also has a type-C port with a power delivery of 3 amps at 5 volts, 2 amps at 9 volts, or 1.5 amps at 12 volts. An LED screen displays the voltage of the cigarette lighter socket it’s plugged into. When a device is plugged in, the screen changes to show how many amps the device uses. It works with 12V and 24V systems.

Price: $14.95. Available at sportys.com.

Flight Gear Tailwind Backpack

Popular among students at flight school Sporty’s Academy, the Tailwind has a headset hanger to keep that expensive headset secure and protected. Inside, there’s also a large section that can accommodate books, kneeboards and a padded pocket for computers and iPads. Internal gear walls are removable for gear modifications. Outside, two side pockets can hold a water bottle or backup radio, and there are holders for other essentials such as flashlights and fuel testers. Webbing loops are helpful for attaching gear with carabiners. The padded shoulder straps and breathable back pad, along with a reinforced handle, all make this a heavy-duty flight bag that stands up to use. It comes with a three-year warranty.

Price: $99.95. Available at sportys.com.

Peeps Eyeglasses Cleaners

Speaking of sunglasses, Peeps promise to clean lenses up to 500 times. NASA uses these compact eyeglasses cleaners on the Space Station. Their carbon cleaning compound safely and easily cleans glasses from oily fingerprint smudges to facial oils. Included are a brush to remove surface dust and dual-facing carbon pads to wipe off any residue on the inside and outside of your lenses. The cleaners also come in a wide range of colors.

Price: $14.95. Available at thegrommet.com.

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Sporty’s has launched a new Commercial Pilot course that uses the same upgraded platform as its two previous new courses, the Private Pilot and the Instrument Pilot courses. All three use all high-definition video, a new, easy-on-the-eyes, intuitive user interface, and all three are viewable on any of, well, we’ve lost count of how many platforms, but chances are, if you can plug it in and get to the internet, you can do your Sporty’s courses there.

The company has, of course, had a commercial study guide for decades. I used it when I did my commercial written and to prepare for my commercial ground portion of the practical test, and it was terrific. That said, there is zero comparison between it and today’s commercial pilot course.

Off the bat, today’s course goes through the maneuvers, most of which are unique to the Commercial certificate. And the new Sporty’s course has not only video, but terrific video, using high-definition GoPro cameras, with as many as six mounted on the outside of the aircraft along with cams on the interior, as well, and with studio lighting. It’s Hollywood-level slick. So if you’re looking to really understand not only what the maneuvers are, which is a lot when you get into the turns and banks of it, but also how to fly them, this course is far and away the best in the world. Then again, the same is true for its Private and Instrument rating courses.

And to get back to my original point, this course goes beyond the knowledge and practical test,s and focuses on real world flying, too. For most, not all, commercial pilots, that means knowing your systems, which means getting to know your electronics. One big difference between today’s Commercial ACS and the one in place when I did my rating in the mid-’90s is that you can do it in a technologically advanced aircraft (TAA), and that TAA doesn’t have to be a retractable gear or three-lever power quadrant model, either. So being proficient using your flight instrumentation and other related systems is critical, and this new course goes deeply into all of that.

Practically speaking, you get a lot for the investment, as the Commercial course also has sections on RVSM and High-Altitude endorsements, required in all practicality for anyone who flies jets for a living. So those courses, which other providers charge for separately, are included here for no extra charge.

The course is available for the iPhone and iPad, for Android devices, for Apple TV and Roku, as well as over the web. And it knows your progress, so you can jump from any platform to the next without skipping a beat.

The cost is $249 for lifetime access, so as the course gets updates and improvements, you get those for free, too. For more information and to get the course, or any of the company’s other courses, visit sportys.com. 

Read up on our previous coverage of Sporty’s Private course here, and their Instrument Rating course here.

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Going through primary training might be a slightly or very distant memory for many of us pilots. It’s important to remember that to pilots in the process, a lot of this stuff is complicated and not at all intuitive. A good instructor understands not only the complicated stuff, but also that the trainee pilot is coming to it all with new eyes. This Sporty’s course gets that, and uses those basic foundations to introduce new topics in a way that allows learners to see the connections between something they will immediately get, for example, the need to determine if the weather is good enough to fly a lesson, to something they don’t know, like what the basic VFR minimums are (1,000 feet and 3 miles).

To start with, the Learn To Fly Course is not a new course. Over the years the company has put together a package of high-definition video—it’s seriously really good—to bring new pilots step by step through the learning process. So while the course itself is not new, the way they’re presented and are widely accessible to students is new and noteworthy.

The way many access the course is via a web browser, though there are apps available for iOS and Android devices. Regardless of device, the course is more graphical than ever, which is the way everything is going, and hooray for that, but for Sporty’s it presented a challenge to create a site that looked the same and worked great on many different platforms. But they did it. You could, for instance, start out watching video on your phone, pick it back up on your desktop at work (we won’t tell) and then that evening watch it on your smart TV via Roku or Apple TV, and the look, feel and functionality are the same. Plus, the course remembers where you left off and is ready to rock and roll as soon as you are. The courses are lifetime purchases, so if you’ve bought the Learn To Fly course within the last many years, your product just got updated free of charge. How often does that happen in life?

The content itself offers a lot of ways to use and access it. Watch a video, and immediately after, you can take a quiz on the material. As you progress through the course, you can study for the FAA knowledge test by reviewing material on a particular chapter or by choosing questions you marked as needing further study. And new this year is a search function that will allow you to create what are, in essence, customized quizzes on material on a single subject, for instance, cross-country flight planning, which is tough for many folks learning to fly.

One change, more of an evolution, is Sporty’s focus on the Airman Certification Standards (ACS), which is the guidebook for the practical, or flying, part of FAA ratings and certificate exams. One of the things I was most impressed by in the new course, and there was a lot that did, were the graphical demonstrations of the maneuvers from the ACS. Having turns on a point described to you is kind of like a radio program about paintings. It can be done, but it’s far from ideal, and in the end, you’ve only got a rough idea of what the thing looks like. Sporty’s ACS sections include the same great testing and review features, including utilities, as the written exam part of the course. You get in-depth preparation for flying the maneuvers—something that will help you fly them better and in less time, making everyone from you to your instructor to the FAA examiner happy.

Some of the other new features of the course include a pre-solo test section, which can be customized by the instructor, self-graded flash cards for the knowledge and practical tests, and integration with CloudAhoy—a really cool flight tracking app that many students and instructors use to review training flights—and with ForeFlight, a full-featured navigation app for iOS devices.

Sporty’s Learn to Fly course costs $249 for a lifetime subscription, and for that price you can use it on any platform you’d like. Finally, for those who want to check out the course’s look and feel, and get some good content in the process, an introductory Learn to Fly overview is available free of charge. For more info, check out sportys.com.

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Check out Sporty’s YouTube video on the new course.

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The app is a little different than the competition, and some very good competition, too, in a number of ways.

MySkyForce incorporates some of the features of top-of-the-line video or online courses from the likes of Sporty’s and King Schools, with interactive quizzes at the end of chapters. There’s no grading of the quizzes and no keeping track of your progress, but the effect is the same. You can find out how much you know and what areas you need to improve on.

When it comes to the text itself, the experience is first rate. For starters, MySkyForce presents the material in a way that’s not dumbed down but that’s still clear and concise. I’ve been flying since I was a kid, and I learned a few things I’d sort of known before but never really understood, like how the FARs, CFR 14 and the structure of the federal government relate to each other and how to think of category and class in a way that’s as simple as manual flaps. And that was just in Chapter One.

Short of an old-fashioned paper text book, MySkyForce is also the cheapest way to cover all the areas of aviation learning you need before you take your knowledge test for Private Pilot or Sport Pilot. The entire course costs just $89.99. By the time you read this, you should have the option of purchasing just one module at a time. If you just want to see what the course looks like, you can download the app and then check out a lesson for free. It’s a perfect option for rusty pilots looking to brush up.

MySkyForce isn’t the flashiest or most feature-filled way to do your Private or Sport Pilot studies. It’s largely text-based, and video components you’ve seen from the segment’s leaders are not to be found. That’s by design, however. Company general manager Gordon Krogh says that videos make it hard for the student to visualize the maneuvers, so MySkyForce instead makes use of animations that get the job done really well. In the end, the app is a clean, affordable and effective approach, one that is sure to keep getting even better. It’s also one that will help you understand some of the most fiendishly complicated concepts in private aviation while getting you through the details on the way to what we all really want: a pilot’s certificate.

MySkyForce is available in the Apple App store, where you can download the app for free and then decide what content to get as you go.

Learn more at MySkyForce.

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The new 2015 versions of Prepware software are shipping now! Complete and easy-to-use, Prepware is the test preparation and test practice tool for today’s aviator. Available for all pilot and mechanic FAA Knowledge Exams.

2015 Prepware software can be installed to laptop and desktop computers (PC and Mac compatible) and includes a 24-month account to Prepware Online. Students can study for their exam using the installed program on a desktop or laptop computer, or login to their Prepware Online account from any internet-connected computer, tablet or smartphone.

Prepware is available in multiple formats including Software (DVD-ROM or Download, compatible with PCs and Macs), Prepware Online (compatible with any internet-connected device, including iPads), Test Prep Bundles (book + software), Prepware School (for instructors and institutions) and we even have apps for Apple iOS, Android, and Windows operating systems. ASA is the trusted provider for FAA Knowledge Exams–with platforms to meet every aviator’s preferred study method.

Visit www.asa2fly.com.

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The perfectly executed instrument approach – it’s one of the most satisfying feelings in aviation. There is nothing quite like breaking out of the clouds with the approach lights right in front of you. You get the sense from your passengers that you are the best pilot with whom they have ever flown – certainly on the level of Chuck Yeager.

You didn’t get to this point by accident. There has been a lot of innovation and refinement of the technology that is available in your Cirrus to put you right on the runway centerline and glidepath. Likewise you have put a lot of effort into learning how to use this technology to improve the ease, efficiency and safety of your instrument flights. Through a new training and safety program, Cirrus Approach, Cirrus Aircraft is committed to ensuring that every Cirrus pilot is as comfortable and proficient flying their aircraft as Mr. Yeager in the example above.

To support this effort, Cirrus Flight Standards and Operations has been working hard on our next set of learning videos for our eFOM series. While their first set of videos focused on Normal Landings, Crosswind Landings and Go-Arounds, they are now setting our sights on instrument approach procedures. Over the next few weeks they plan to release five new videos: Instrument Approach Procedures Overview, ILS Approaches, GPS Approaches, VOR Approaches and Missed Approach Procedures. These videos provide step-by-step procedural guidance, a dive into some confusing or misunderstood concepts and demonstrations of the great capability available in your Cirrus, all delivered in a fun and engaging manner by expert Cirrus Factory Flight Instructors.

Visit cirrusaircraft.com/approach to learn more and to sign up to view their new training courses.

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The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is announcing a change in its online flight planning member benefit. Starting in 2015, AOPA will return to the AOPA Internet Flight Planner (AIFP) powered by Jeppesen, thus retiring the current flight planner, FlyQ Web. AIFP will remain a free member benefit.

“We are excited to be partnering with Jeppesen to once again offer the popular AOPA Internet Flight Planner to our members,” said AOPA President Mark Baker. “Jeppesen is a longtime supporter of AOPA and its mission and I am pleased that together, we will deliver the free internet-based flight planner that our members already know and value.”

“Delivering the AOPA Internet Flight Planner powered by Jeppesen will ensure that this great benefit continues for AOPA members,” said Mark Van Tine, Jeppesen CEO and vice president, Boeing Digital Aviation. “Jeppesen is very proud to be a partner of AOPA in supporting the General Aviation community.”

Since its initial launch in 2007, AIFP became a popular feature on the organization’s website. AOPA is already working with Jeppesen on migrating user data from FlyQ Web. In the transition back to AIFP, AOPA will be returning to the same version as existed when the switch was made to FlyQ Web.

A “beta” version of AIFP will be available for members to start using this fall. A full transition will occur after AOPA is comfortable with the user experience and has ensured that the full transition will be as smooth and seamless as possible. AOPA will keep all members and flight planner users informed as the process goes forward.

In late July, AOPA announced it is exiting the electronic flight bag (EFB) market. At that time, AOPA also announced that it would be developing a distinct smartphone application for flight planning focusing on content and functions driven by member needs. The new smartphone application, available in 2015, will also remain a free member benefit and will link to the AIFP.

About AOPA
Since 1939, AOPA has protected the freedom to fly for thousands of pilots, aircraft owners and aviation enthusiasts. AOPA is the world’s largest aviation member association, with representatives based in Frederick, Md., Washington, D.C., and seven regions across the United States. AOPA provides member services that range from advocacy at the federal, state, and local levels to legal services, flight planning products, safety programs and award-winning media. To learn more, visit www.aopa.org.

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