Learn To Fly an Airplane - Intermediate

This introduction to the course sets the stage for your deeper learning of handling an airplane in all phases of flight. An overview of the course content will be viewed here and topics such as emergency landings, short field handling and crosswind techniques will be introduced. This is the introduction to the rest of the course. Ensure you download the front and back of your new checklist for the Cessna 172 at Buttonville airport. 

In this Intermediate course, you are introduced to rudder pedals; the realistic method for controlling your plane on the ground and coordinated flight when in the air. This module focuses on getting used to using them while taxiing, without using your yoke to "steer" the plane. 

You know how to take off from the beginner course. Now you have to do it more realistically using rudder pedals. This module is also a re-acquaintance with Toronto Island Airport and the ground and circuit procedures here. 

For the duration of this course, we will make our home base Buttonville airport, north of Toronto and a very busy place. From here, we can head out on practice exercises to the north on those short fields. We will also be doing our final flight test from here to two other airports and back. 

This essential skill is practiced in flight training and expected during a flight test. A precautionary landing is an unplanned landing due to sickness or weather. 

This essential skill is practiced regularly by every pilot during flight training until it is second nature. No pilot wants to do an emergency landing, but they all know how instinctively. Our single engine Cessna 172 might have an engine failure and we need to know how to communicate, select a landing site and land safely. 

Diversions are your first taste of cross country flight planning. This is done in the airplane without the use of instruments or even rulers. A diversion is that decision a pilot has to make to "divert" to an alternate airport and land, with estimates and calculations along the way. 

Returning to our new home base from any angle and learning the checkpoints and procedures to do so. 

Eventually, you will fly to an airport that doesn't have long and wide runways. When you do, you need these skills to land safely and to take off again when you leave. 

Focussing on the landing part of short field techniques. Those grass strips and small town runways look awfully small from the air. The skill is to approach slow without falling out of the sky and stop before the end of the runway consistently. 

Part of the skill and procedure at short fields and other airports is how to arrive safely without the guidance of a control tower person. Here you will learn how to do that for any airport. 

This essential skill is needed at any time at any airport for landing and for take offs. There will always be a component of wind that could throw you off course when trying to land and you need to know how to handle it.

An introduction to the methods to navigate to your destination. There are no road signs in the sky and you need to know Visual Flight Rules for cross country flight navigation. 

Every flight needs a plan and here you will learn how that is done, without fancy computers or algorithmic procedures. A pencil, ruler and a map to plan your flight and to enter it in a flight plan. In this module you will also be introduced to online flight planning resources like Skyvector,com who have allowed their use in this course. 

First you planned the fly, now you fly the plan! Our first cross country is to Oshawa and back but every skill of flight planning is put to use in this flight not far away. This is a taste of the bigger flight plan coming up. 

No cross country flight would be complete without knowing how to use this radio navigation aid. Even pilots "in the soup" can use this instrument to guide them to their destination. 

This important instrument is simple, yet invaluable when you need to point to a radio navigational aid and head to it. You will use this in your practice cross country and your final homework assignment. 

This important and simple navigation aid was used heavily during war-plane times. Many NDBs are still around today and easily guide us on our journeys. 

A demonstration of the first leg of your practice assignment. Starting from Buttonville airport to Stanhope/Haliburton through the Simcoe VOR. Use these demos as guidelines for your own practice cross country flight test.  

A demonstration of the second leg of your practice assignment. Starting from Buttonville airport to Stanhope/Haliburton through the Simcoe VOR was your first phase. Now, in Phase 2 you start 'em up again and head to Peterborough, using your flight plan. Use these demos as guidelines for your own practice cross country flight test.

A demonstration of the third leg of your practice assignment. Starting from Buttonville airport to Stanhope/Haliburton through the Simcoe VOR was your first phase. Phase 2 was from Stanhope to Peterborough. Now, in Phase 3 you start 'em up again and head home to Buttonville, passing through the Oshawa NDB. This clip stops at the Oshawa NDB. Clip 3.2 carries from there. Use these demos as guidelines for your own practice cross country flight test.

This demonstration clip continues the final leg of your practice cross country flight. It will pass over Oshawa airport and observe NDB behavior, then home to Buttonville airport to land and shutdown.  Use these demos as guidelines for your own practice cross country flight test.

A demonstration of the first leg of your homework assignment. Starting from Toronto Island airport, under the 1700 foot ceiling of Pearson International along the Lake Ontario coast to the Skyway bridge in Hamilton. The next clip (Phase 2) picks up from there and continues on to St. Catherine airport, where the final leg to Niagara Falls will happen (in Phase 3 video clip). Use these demos as guidelines for your own homework cross country flight. 

A demonstration of the second leg of your homework assignment. Starting from Toronto Island airport, under the 1700 foot ceiling of Pearson International along the Lake Ontario coast to the Skyway bridge in Hamilton. This clip (Phase 2) picks up from there and continues on to St. Catherine airport, where the final leg to Niagara Falls will happen (in Phase 3 video clip). Use these demos as guidelines for your own homework cross country flight. 

A demonstration of the third leg of your homework assignment. Starting from Toronto Island airport, under the 1700 foot ceiling of Pearson International along the Lake Ontario coast to the Skyway bridge in Hamilton through to St. Catherines airport.This clip (Phase 3) picks up from there and continues on from St. Catherine airport, to the Niagara Falls holding pattern for sight-seeing and back.  Use these demos as guidelines for your own homework cross country flight. 

A note about FSRecorder and FSX Steam Edition. But also a final greeting from the author as you finish the course and start planning all your flights to faraway places. There will be a final: Advanced course where you will learn detailed checklists, different planes and an introduction to Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) and float flying.