President Bush signed a Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that included $275,000 appropriated by Congress to promote Airport Watch and continue funding the toll-free reporting hotline (866/GA SECURE).
AOPA's Airport Watch, established in 2003, is simple yet effective: Make sure the aircraft you just finished flying is properly locked, and look out for suspicious activity at the airport. You'll be able to tell immediately if someone or something seems out of the ordinary. You can tell your flight instructor or the fixed-base operator, or call the hotline mentioned above.
Night flight
Wintertime is the perfect time to get in some night flying practice, so check out the AOPA Air Safety Foundation's Safety Hot Spot: Flying Night VFR. Each Safety Hot Spot focuses on a timely issue or trend within the general aviation community and offers a host of resources on a single page.
This special Safety Hot Spot includes AOPA and Air Safety Foundation publications, a Safety Checkup written by foundation staff pilots, several Safety Quizzes, and a list of night-VFR accident reports so you can learn from the mistakes of others.
Free weekly training tips delivered to your inbox
Working toward your first solo, mastering landings, or learning VOR navigation? Looking for aviation schools to attend and scholarships to help make that happen?
AOPA ePilot Flight Training Edition is a free weekly electronic newsletter that provides training tips, valuable flight safety recommendations, and news stories about scholarships, flight schools, and universities and colleges that offer degrees in aviation.
The free newsletter can be delivered to your inbox every Friday morning and provides direct access to information on AOPA Online and AOPA Flight Training Online. Training tips from the newsletter are posted each week on AOPA Flight Training Online.
To subscribe, visit AOPA Online.
Cockpit connection
Are you connected? Datalink is the latest technology bringing digital weather and traffic information to general aviation cockpits, and the aircraft you train in could already be equipped with it. Learn how this new technology works--and how you can use it safely in the cockpit--with Datalink, the AOPA Air Safety Foundation's 30-minute online safety course.
Datalink uses satellites and ground stations to send information via wireless signals to a receiver on properly equipped aircraft; the information then can be displayed on a GPS screen, multifunction display, or personal digital assistant.
Datalink weather information includes radar, satellite, text, severe weather warnings, and more. Traffic and airspace information, like temporary flight restrictions, also help to increase pilots' situational awareness in the cockpit.
Help other pilots--file a pirep
There are certain things a student pilot can't do until checkride day--carrying a passenger, for instance. Fortunately, you don't have to wait until that day to file a pilot report, or pirep.
A pirep is simply a weather observation report that you relay to a flight service station or flight watch. Pireps are the only source of observed weather aloft. You can file one if you notice a deviation from what was forecast, or even if you didn't--that confirmation helps weather observers and pilots too. They are generally filed from the air, but you can file a pirep by telephone after you land.
Don't know how to file a pilot report? Learn how by taking the AOPA Air Safety Foundation's SkySpotter online course. It will walk you through all the necessary elements, who to report them to, and how to find a report.
