Basic Private Pilot Ground School
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Lesson 1: Your First Flight6 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 2: Maneuvers and the Traffic Pattern6 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 3: Understanding the Wind and Turns6 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 4: AOA, Stalls, and Other Scary Things5 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 5: Ground Reference, Maneuvers, and FARs4 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 6: Building Good Landings5 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 7: The Less Busy Airspace: G, E, D3 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 8: Class A, B, and C Airspace: The Busier Side of the Sky4 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 9: Flying Blind and Performance Calculations4 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 10: Soft and Short Field T.O.'s + Landings4 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 11: Start Your Engines: Engines, Systems, and Instruments6 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 12: Weight and Balance, Navigation Systems4 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 13: Luck with Weather6 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 14: Your First SOLO!2 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 15: VFR Charts and Navigation5 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 16: Weather Charts and Services6 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 17: Aeromedical Factors, ADM, FARS5 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 18: Flying at Night3 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 19: Cross Country Flight Planning4 Topics|1 Quiz
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Lesson 20: Test Prep5 Topics|2 Quizzes
Basic Cloud Types
Cloud Spotting Games
Next time you have nothing better to do, go be a kid again and look up at the clouds and see what shapes and animals you can find in the sky. Just this time around, add a little twist to it and see if you can also identify which of the main families the cloud belongs to!
While there are a lot of different cloud types listed below, there are just a few basic ones I want you to be familiar with and be able to identify.
Stratus
Solid, yet still thin. Not much vertical development. Constant light rain can be expected.
Cirrus
High altitude and wispy thin clouds.
Cumulus
The “popcorn” you see in the sky in the summertime. Indicative of an unstable atmosphere, turbulence below them, and the possibility for them to grow and become thunderstorms later on (cumulonimbus)
note: adding “nimbus” just means rain. You can have a towering cumulus cloud or regular cumulus cloud for that matter. However, it does not become “cumulonimbus” until rain begins to fall from it.
FAMILIES of clouds refer to the height they are at. Clouds are divided into four FAMILIES based on their height.
- High (cirro prefix)
- Middle (alto prefix)
- Low
- Clouds with extensive vertical development (i.e. towering cumulus)
VIRGA
Sounds pretty, right? It looks even prettier, check out the picture below!
As with many beautiful looking things in this world, it is in fact totally vicious and will get you killed. What we see here is rain falling and evaporating before it ever reaches the ground. Not only is the rain cooling the air around it making it want to sink (because it is carrying cold water droplets from up above). Since the rain is evaporating before ever reaching the ground, it is absorbing a large amount of heat energy in that process of evaporation. This means the air around and below this evaporating rain is going to start sinking very, VERY fast.
Ever feel a cold strong wind when the sky looked stormy, only to never really ever have any rain reach the ground? This was probably just a downdraft coming from a nearby cell of VIRGA. Downdrafts should be obviously hazardous to you as a pilot for two reasons, horizontal windshear, and vertical windshear. If you are unlucky enough (or unwise enough) to fly near one of these cells as it begins producing large downdrafts, the vertical “wind” will push you down toward the ground much faster than your airplane can climb (at speeds up to 6,000 fpm sink, most Cessna’s only climb at 500-750 fpm). As you get near the surface or not directly underneath the cell, you will now get the displeasure of horizontal windshear (reference the diagram below) that will lead to large fluctuations in airspeed and if you are especially unlucky, large enough increases to cause structural damage or large enough decreases to cause a stall.