This syllabus includes an introduction to the principles of flight, a basic overview of instruments and radio communications, and a scenario-based training guide to help non-pilots be more knowledgeable and better prepared to land an aircraft safely in the event of an actual emergency involving pilot incapacitation.
Modern borescopes are fantastic tools for determining the health of piston engines, and they give us the unprecedented ability to make and share digital images of the things we see inside cylinders.
Personal minimums and decision-making criteria are best defined on the ground, free of external pressure and the workload of flying the aircraft. Writing them down makes it much easier to resist the temptation to “mentally negotiate” yourself into a tight spot, allowing your decision making to be clouded in the heat of the moment by emotion and hope. These documents define the contract you make with yourself, your passengers, and your family.
While completely preventable, misfueling continues to be a problem. The AOPA Air Safety Institute provides simple steps to prevent it from happening to you. Learn how clear communication and AOPA’s customizable fuel ordering cards can save the day.
This syllabus is designed to help protect pilots against GA's most fatal type of weather-related accident: VFR into IMC. It is recommended for use by flight instructors and schools.
This report summarizes the numbers of accidents, fatal accidents, and fatalities during the past two years, including tabulations of the categories and classes of aircraft involved, pilot qualifications, purposes of the accident flights, and light and weather conditions.
Know at a glance what the weather minimums and communication requirements are for the airspace around you.
A guide to help with efficient and complete flight planning—ready for you to print and use.
Pireps are an invaluable source of weather information for the decision-making process. We need your help to create more pireps; this handy form makes it easy!
Flash cards are a great way for pilots to learn about complex topics. They're also a helpful testing tool for flight instructors and pilot examiners. Here you can find flashcards pertaining to runway safety, airspace, and aircraft.
An archive of accident reports featured in AOPA ePilot.
An archive of the Air Safety Institute's original newsletter to instructors.
Browse type-specific aircraft reviews and find information about safety records, technical details, and more.
As the pilot population grows older, it’s important to consider the potential impact on GA safety. How much does aging degrade our piloting performance? Does it affect some skills more than others? In this report, we look to 20 years’ worth of scientific research on older pilots for answers about the overall impact of age, and ways pilots can best minimize or delay any negative affects.
Pilots who believe that aerobatic training will enable a recovery from an inadvertent spin in the traffic pattern are fooling themselves. That myth—and other misconceptions about stalls and spins in GA aircraft—is explored in this Air Safety Institute study. View search results for stall/spin accidents.
Flight training is widely believed to be safer than most other aspects of general aviation. But is it? And do specific aspects of the training process pose greater risks and thus offer greater room for improvement? The Air Safety Institute’s first comprehensive analysis of instructional accidents in a decade finds surprising differences between different types and phases of training in both airplanes and helicopters.
