Professional pilots understand the many considerations of winter flying, because they don’t have the luxury of shrugging at snow on the ground and heading back inside. Two such pilots, Len Costa and Carl Valeri, have produced an online course aimed at increasing pilot skill level in cold weather.
The Practical Guide to Winter Flying delves into ground ice, in-flight ice, fluid deicing techniques, wing versus tail stall, flight into known icing, autopilot concerns, and exit strategies, among other topics. There’s plenty of information here, whether you are a student pilot working through the meteorological portion of ground school, or an instrument-rated pilot for whom in-flight icing is a very real concern.
Costa and Valeri are cohosts of the Stuck Mic Avcast, and their rapport—a hallmark of the podcast—also is evident in this collaboration. They pepper the academic portion of each lesson with pertinent anecdotes drawn from their experiences as flight instructors and airline pilots. The effect is like taking a ground school class with some flying friends who happen to be quite knowledgeable. The production quality is on the minimalist side, which is to say that it’s more like viewing a narrated slideshow rather than a full-blown video course the likes of which are produced by King Schools and Sporty’s. Still, the creators deserve points for making the material accessible and relevant.
Price: $47
Contact: www.stuckmicavcast.com/practical-guide-to-winter-flying
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