Training

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Remember that pilot personality self-survey, with the half dozen psycho babble attitudes guaranteed to make a smoking hole? There was resigned, anti-authority, impulsive, macho and invulnerable.

We think a more accurate way to assess whether a pilot falls into one of these groups is to connect him to an EEG and see which button lights up following the words, Caution wake turbulence, departing 757.

Would your button be Resigned? Impulsive? Invulnerable? If you don’t spend your spare time tearing up gyros for fun, the prospect of an uncommanded flight upset might make your blood run cold.

A better-than-average grasp of airmanship may cause you to understand that t…

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The concept of learning to fly instruments is more appealing than the reality. Earning an IFR rating is hard work and, ultimately, tedious.

But forget concepts. Lets talk money.

Everyone knows that having an instrument rating lowers your insurance premium. Well put some numbers on that in a moment but consider something else.

If you want to buy kinds of high-performance airplanes or high limits on something more modest, its getting to the point where some insurance companies wont even look at you unless your certificate is stamped: Instrument Airplane. So whats it cost to earn an instrument rating these days? It varies according to how much experience youve go…

Even if youre not one of those dotcom zillionaires, if you own a moderately expensive airplane, youve probably accumulated a nice tidy cache of wealth youd like to retain for your retirement years.

Owning an airplane, however, puts that wealth at risk. One of the biggest problems to face aircraft owners in recent years is the lack of higher limits of liability coverage beyond the run-of-the-mill million bucks, a sum thats chump change by modern insurance standards.

This is an expensive problem for pilots transitioning into bigger airplanes, but it plagues everyone who needs significant limits of liability, including people who have owned the same airplane for years.

Why It H…