r/flying

Hey everyone, 800+ TT CFII here. At this point, i am 99% certain one of my students is purposefully falsifying his previous logbook entries from his previous instructor in order to meet the requirements for the PPL checkride.

He sent me pictures of his logbook so that i could double check his requirements were met, and i found some suspicious entries. biggest example is a 3 hour flight that had the day time entry crossed out and swapped to night time, yet the CFI put in the notes that they were doing ground reference maneuvers.

Went and looked up the ADSB data for this flight, and sure enough, flight started at 7:30 AM.

This is an extremely awkward situation as I have a decently close relationship with this student and instructed with him independently for some time.

Today I am calling up his old school to cross my T's and dot my I's before I proceed, but essentially just looking for confirmation and second opinions before I pull the plug on this guy and make sure I do it in a smart manner that also covers my ass.

Anyone ever encounter this situation before or just have generic advice on the best way to proceed? Thanks in advance!

during my training, I used to have a bad habit of conversing with my CFI during taxi, takeoff, and “critical” phases of flight. I became fond of the sterile cockpit rule and applied it during my checkride. But do airline pilots ever engage in small talk about irrelevant things during taxiing, run-up, takeoff, and landing?

I got my PPL in October and have about 100 hours to my name in a Cessna 172S. This weekend I decided to go flying by myself and went to the practice area to do maneuvers. It was pretty windy, but I’d flown in those conditions before, just not by myself yet. When I went into land, I was completely crabbed into the wind the whole approach, which went well until touch down. I touched down fine, but a second or two after I completely veered off to the right of centerline and thought I was gonna go off the runway into the grass. I ended up getting the plane under control and taxiid to parking okay,but the whole experience was pretty sketchy even though it lasted for two seconds.

I’m a little confused because the wind was coming from the right, so I’m not sure why I veered off to the right. The only thing I can think of is maybe I subconsciously had my right foot on the pedal? My landings have been nothing, but smooth since my check ride. The last few days I’ve felt nervous about flying again and am doubting my skills. Anyone have some advice? I called my old CFI and he told my I did the right thing by calling and asking about it, and my flying is good so he’s not worried about it at all.

I just wanted to come here and post a PSA for everyone in flight training and remind you that your instructors are people too. Please talk to your instructor directly about what is bothering you before posting on Reddit.

Many of the concerns are legitimate but could also be solved with a two minute conversation letting them know that something they are doing is bothering you. Ninety nine percent of the time you can work it out and jumping straight to the chief pilot or firing them is usually not the right was to go about this (which seems to be everyone on Reddit’s favorite solution). Throughout your career you will fly with people you do not get along with, and being able to bridge those gaps and still get the job done is a skill you should start developing now.

Remember most everyone in this industry is trying to improve so a lot of the time a simple conversation can go a long way. No matter where you are the chief pilot is never your saving grace, and you should remember that when trying to use them to settle disagreements. The call the instructor gets to go into the chiefs office will not go how you imagine or want. It just gives the instructor a podium to tell the chiefs all the reasons that you are not putting in your best effort as a student so on and so forth. Most of the time the instructor will end up on top of that interaction and everyone is annoyed at you for wasting their time.

This is what being a professional is all about. Talk to people resolve your differences and stay out of the chiefs office together. No one is more invested in your training and seeing you succeed than your instructor is and certainly not the chief pilot, just keep that in mind.

Any of you 121 guys know if there are waivers that allow someone to ride JS on a 121 carrier? Long story short my father has his final retirement flight this summer and I fly for a 135 Carrier that does not have CASS. From current industry trends it seems like I am not going to have a class date by the time he is on his last flight. Does anyone know if they have waivers for this type of scenario?

Edit: we do have JS agreements with the carrier but it’s a non-crew seat agreement

Hey yall! I’m currently a 737 CA for a US 121 and I miss general aviation like crazy. My buddy took me up in a 172 the other day on an overnight and there’s something freeing about being able to hop in an airplane and go wherever you, and do whatever you want. I miss it, but don’t enjoy the idea of owning one as it’s just a money pit. I’ve thought of CFIing again on the side as well, but I don’t want to take the job of a CFI trying to get their hours.

Anyone here part of a flight club? One where you have share of the airplane and pay a monthly fee then only pay for fuel or tac or whatever else? Is it worth it? Cost breakdown between owning yourself vs a club? Thanks!

All in the title essentially. I have had an absolute nightmare of an experience with this school. I’ve had moments where I feel like giving up on even pursuing aviation but I haven’t completely thrown in the towel yet. However, I’m finally eligible for my PPL checkride after months of swooning from the school. They are telling me it’s a $2,000 fee for the checkride — same week appointment. Their website advertises a $1,500 checkride (which I’ve also read is overpriced). I’m located in South Florida. Do I pay the $2,000? Is there other ways to go? Please help me out. Thank you all.

EDIT: Airplane rental IS included in the $2,000. I’m sorry for not pointing that out originally.

For some background, I joined a flight school in Florida around August 2025, and now it’s April 6, 2026, so it’s been about 8 months. I’d say I actually started flying more in September or October, but I don’t remember exactly.

During this time, I’ve had a lot of issues with instructors and scheduling. I’m almost at 60 hours and still haven’t soloed. Honestly, I don’t even fully know what the problem is, and I’m hoping maybe someone who has been in a similar situation can give me some advice.

A big part of it is confidence. My first instructor was extremely hard on me and would yell a lot. It got to the point where it really affected me. On my very first flight with him, he actually made me cry. And before anyone says I’m just being dramatic, my current instructor asked me what happened, and after we talked, he told me he had overheard that same instructor screaming at another student so badly during a sim lesson that he felt he had to step in because it was too much.

Ever since then, I get this nervous feeling in my stomach whenever I think about flying. But the weird part is that once I actually get in the airplane and start flying, I feel amazing. My current instructor is really nice, and he has helped me a lot with my traffic pattern work and landings. I plan on sticking with him.

What’s hard for me is not comparing myself to other people I was in ground school with. Some of them are already working on instrument, and I’m still here trying to get to solo. I feel stuck, and sometimes it feels like I’m never going to get there.

Another issue is studying. I know it’s important, and I know I still need to take my written, but it’s honestly been really hard for me to sit down and focus on the material the way I need to.

So I guess I’m asking: has anyone else dealt with this? Is this a normal feeling in flight training, or is this a sign that maybe flying just isn’t for me?

I lost a close friend in a small plane crash near Fort Lauderdale a few years ago. After that I started going through the NTSB eADMS database trying to understand what actually kills GA pilots. I'm a software developer, not a pilot, but the data is public and the patterns are pretty clear.

I started with the C172 in Florida because that's what my friend flew. Since 2008 there have been 232 C172 accidents in Florida. 21 were fatal, killing 44 people. Here's what the breakdown by phase of flight looks like:

Landing: 88 accidents, 0 fatal. The most common accident in a 172 in Florida and nobody dies. Ground loops in crosswinds, hard landings, runway excursions. Metal gets bent, pilots walk away.

Maneuvering: 14 accidents, 7 fatal. A 50% fatality rate. Low altitude, too much bank, airspeed drops, stall/spin, not enough altitude to recover. Pilot hours in the fatal ones ranged from 65 to 2,311. A 2,000-hour pilot in a 172M stalled during an excessive bank angle at low altitude. Same outcome as the 65-hour student.

Cruise: 23 accidents, 4 fatal. Engine failures over water and the Everglades, fuel exhaustion from bad planning.

Climb: 9 accidents, 3 fatal. Density altitude, engine failures after takeoff.

Takeoff: 23 accidents, 0 fatal. Common but survivable, same as landing.

The thing that jumped out at me is the maneuvering number. From what I can tell, pilots spend training time on crosswind landings and engine failures on takeoff. Those happen all the time in Florida and basically nobody dies from them. Meanwhile the low pass, the steep turn over the beach, the sightseeing bank — that's where the 172 actually kills people in this state.

And experience doesn't seem to help. The NTSB writes almost the same probable cause every time regardless of hours: "failure to maintain adequate airspeed while maneuvering at low altitude, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall."

I'm not a pilot so I'm curious — does this match what you see in training? Is maneuvering flight risk something that gets enough attention relative to how deadly the data says it is?

Just looking for general inspiration, it can be technical, personal accounts or similar from any aspect of the industry.

Books I have read so far;

Flying the Big Jets - Stanley Johnson

Be a better pilot - Alan Bramson

I learned about that from flying - written by Brian Lecomber and co featuring numerous pilot stories.

Mechanics of Flight - A C Kermode

Good for developing the depth of your knowledge, took me a while to get through…

Fate is the hunter - Ernest K Gann.

Would recommend this one to any new starting pilot to answer your questions such as ‘had a bad landing at the weekend, is my career over?’ ref page 31 - “the second landing has the men in the control tower reaching for their alarm buttons. In fact it is not a single landing but an endless series of angry collisions between the airplane and the earth” this is a chap who has 1000’s of hrs and getting checked for a DC2/3.

Buddy and I bought our first plane today - a low-hour, cherry condition 1965 Piper Cherokee 150.

It's currently a VFR aircraft. Has old, 4-knob ADS-B out, Garmin 250XL GPS/comms, Stratux cup-mount ADS-B in on an ipad, no VOR at all, and all-old-school steam gauges. My buddy has his PPL and is working on his instrument rating (been running a 172 at a flight school). I have done ground school and passed the written and about to start the flight part of my PPL. We would like the aircraft to be IFR-certified, and we are considering avionics upgrades. The Garmin 355 or 375 would make the most sense, but neither has VHF Nav and VOR capability. Buddy says pretty much all modern approaches are WAAS GPS with RNAV or VNAV. If that's true, is it accurate that we don't really need to worry about adding VHF Nav for VOR/ILS?

Im 23 and recently started my journey to a career in flying after a discovery flight nearly two months ago. My local flight school partners with an online university and everything seems laid out and legit. Last week I got my first class medical out of the way but now I’m getting cold feet. I currently work full-time and am so hesitant on taking out these big loans for flying. It has me wondering, after reading through countless stories of people’s loan disasters, if there is a reality in which I can make this happen. None of this has to do will the discipline for studying or real life practice, but is purely on the overwhelming debt I’ve heard so much about. So I suppose my question to those who have made it to CFI and beyond - What was your plan to take care of all the accumulated debt? How much did you take out in loans or did you pay over time while working (which is what I’m considering)? Any advice not particular to my exact situation would be helpful as well!

I am moving to Southern Arizona this year and have been wondering where to go to flight schools for helicopter training. Not only that, but being prepared beforehand-study materials like textbooks, YouTube channels, tutorials, devices (iPad, navigation), software systems or apps, flight bags, etc. Any and all information would be USEFUL.

Also, how long would someone have to wait to get their medical if they have had surgeries when really young, but healthy today?

Hey guys i need honest advice

I’m an international student in Florida and I’m at exactly 100 hours rn

The thing is i finished all my PPL requirements around 65 hours. Everything after that has just been because of towered airports — I still haven’t finished that part yet even though my instructor says my flying is good.

My problem is the radio with tower. Non-towered is totally fine, but once I talk to tower I get nervous, start overthinking, and feel like I’m gonna mess up if they say something I’m not expecting.

Also, the nearest towered airport is about a 28 minute flight one way, so a big part of each flight is just going there and back, not actual pattern work.

On top of that, I’ve had a lot of gaps between flights, sometimes pretty long ones, which I feel like is slowing my progress and making me repeat things.

It’s starting to make me question everything and I’ve even thought about quitting. I just feel stuck mentally.

So I'm a late bloomer...got my ATP/MEL about a month ago, and am looking for a job. I think my age is gonna be an obstacle. Any suggestions where to look? I just want to fly, don't need the money, just fulfilling a life long dream.

I can't be asked with putting up a fake corporate persona for people I don't care about, do airlines check your linkedln/connections or do they not care if you have one or not?

Is $1,700 steep for an instrument check ride? I’m at a 141 school with an in house DPE and they claim that it’s much cheaper than regular check rides but I feel like that’s bs