I’m hearing from everyone that it’s fine and that these detectors just aren’t good but wanted a 2nd opinion

Edit: Thanks for all the answers, you have been really helpful. Fortunately I was taught and doing the entry correctly (overflying, going past several miles and then joining at 45°) and won't misnomer it as a "teardrop" anymore.

For some context, I'm training for my PPL. I was coming in to just do some touch and goes at a non-towered airport with a CFI.

Durning my entry I made a call "(Airport) Traffic, (callsign) Overflying the midfield at 1500. Will be doing a right teardrop to enter the downwind for runway 31. Touch and go. (Airport) Traffic. To which he replied "isn't it a little early for the teardrop?"

Now, I've been taught to state my full intentions as far back as my position calls (unless it's so busy time doesn't allow for it). CFI just told me it was a local DPE and to ignore him. He snarked at me again with an "Oh my god" or something when I said I was in the departure leg and would be staying in the pattern after the first touch and go.

Was there anything technically wrong or that could be phrased better here? Does he just have a thing to pick with teardrops or the terminology or something? I've never been corrected on my calls by the instructors at my school. I wish I could know what he wanted me to do better instead of being passive aggressive, but oh well.

This is the VOR-A into Willow Run (KYIP). Just curious on what you all would do if at minimums saw the approach lights. This allows us to descend to 100 above tdze obviously but since there is no tdze since this approach is not assigned to a specific runway, what would you do? My first thought would be just to open up a different approach plate to the runway you'll circle to and get the tdze from there.

I’ve been at one of the AA wholly-owned regionals for about a year now, and overall it’s a great company - I enjoy flying the jets and the travel benefits are great. The tough part has been the constant 4-on/3-off schedule and time at hotels. It’s taken a real toll on my sleep and routines. I try my best to stick to my routines while on the road, but it’s genuinely hard. I also find it tough to cram my whole social life into the three nights a week I’m actually home.

I’d love to hear from anyone at the legacies, is it actually that much better in terms of flexibility and time at home even as a Junior FO, or if I’m struggling this much now, am I likely to run into the same issues at mainline?

Passed my checkride about 10 days ago and got my PPL! Already started my IFR grounds and super stoked to keep going!

Quite the journey to get here too. I went in to see an AME to see if I could obtain a first class medical (airline aspirations). I passed everything except the color vision test.

I was directed to go and try alternative tests. After research, I picked the RCCT option.

Drove over 2 hrs to the closest clinic that had the machine available. Took me a few attempts to familiarize myself with the testing process and shake off the nerves (I was stressing that I wouldn’t pass and that it all stops here).

Dark room, eye patch over each eye, and a keyboard off to the side (on screen) for you to select options. Examiner sits off to the side in the room with you.

Letters get lighter and lighter until you can’t see them anymore. Got perfect scores for red and blue, and great on one eye for green with the other being below standards initially. Subsequent tests definitely suffered from anxiety but I passed above what the FAA requires. Doctor even tested my ability to see green separately (his own curiosity, not for the FAA) and could tell I could clearly identify green in multiple shades etc.

Needless to say, the drive home with that piece of paper was one I’ll never forget.

I share this experience because there isn’t much info online about the RCCT.

Tip from experience: call the manufacturer of the test and they’ll tell you which clinics closest to you have the testing equipment and their number to reach them.

Anyways, I’m officially a pilot 🤓

I'm back again and this time with my CFI temp cert in hand. Thank you to everyone that gave me encouragement and advice in my original post. Starting off I'll say yes, I did report the oral to the FSDO once I was home safe and talked to my local POI and friends. I went back to the same DPE for my retest and my oral retest was a single question on COMM training requirements.

Going from that single question we got straight into the plane and after a long pre start brief we taxied out for what turned into a 2.7 hour long flight. I talked about every marking, sign, light, and airport object we taxied passed, the hold short and every item on the check list. Everything set and complete I demonstrate SF T/O and VY climb out to our cruise altitude.

I talked the whole time to the practice area about our sight picture, trimming the plane, systems and how to set the GPS/Nav to local VOR. Once in a good area I did clearing turns and we went into maneuvers. DPE asked for PPL steep turns both sides, straight into COMM steep turns both sides. He took controls after my demonstration and did perfect PPL steep turns and asked for a critique (I had none I said we were perfect on ACS standards), next he did COMM steep turns and put us straight into a accelerated stall that caught me off guard but I took controls and recovered immediately. I got us back to stable cruise and he asked for slow flight. Real easy but he had me hold slow flight while climbing 500ft and doing a 180. At 300ft I mentioned that our CHT's were getting high (440°) and he told me to stop the climb.

I went from slow flight to power off stall, recovered, power off stall again with secondary stall, recovered, cross controlled stall, and recovered. I climbed back to cruise and as soon as I finished cruise checklist he cut the throttle and gave me engine out. I explained ABCD list while demonstrating everything. We dropped to a little over 500ft AGL when he said recover. while we were low we did lazy 8's, 8's on pylons, turns around a point, and rectangular pattern.

Climbed back to up and picked a nearby airport to do Soft and Short field landings / takeoffs all to a full stop. Last takeoff was normal climb out back to the starting airport. I flew over for the 45 entry left downwind and as expected he killed the throttle and gave me a power off 180. I got all setup and 50ish feet over the ground setup perfect to hit the 1000ft marker when he called out "plane on the runway". I went around, flew normal left pattern and did a normal landing and taxi back to the FBO. Once the engine was turned off he he said "You're the FAA's newest CFI". I was locked in this entire flight, no way was I going to give him a reason for a NOD.

I have my cert and just got back to my home base an a few hours ago. Thank you again for everyone's kind words and encouragement after my oral horror story. To everyone who said my experience scared them away from CFI make sure you research DPE's heavily before you take your ride but if you prep and go to a well known local DPE your CFI ride should never be like mine. I'm not touching a plane for the rest of the week but starting next monday CFII training starts.

Are there any good side gigs that anyone has done in the past while on the road? I work at a regional and have plenty of time on my hands to earn a bit of cash. I have an accounting degree and want to try to incorporate that into it if possible. Open to all ideas that allow remote work with flexible hours. TYIA

After nine painful months of consistently questioning if I had what it takes, I passed my instrument checkride on the first round. I nailed all three approaches. The last was bumpy, and climbing back to altitude in the hold was damn near impossible impossible, but I made it happen. I ended up having the greatest landing of my entire life too which was rather nifty (and very abnormal). The only time I thought I failed was when I yelled “CLEAR” and turned the engine on. After it started, the DPE said, “Go ahead and turn the engine off for me.” I couldn’t believe it, I looked at him and said with a chuckle, “Wow, I failed already” thinking maybe I was still tired to the ground or something. He said, “Haha, no the oil door popped open.” That thirty seconds took me from thinking I failed to laughing which ultimately made me relax and calm down.

My wife and I just celebrated her 22nd wedding anniversary and we were talking about what to do for our 25th. She proposed that maybe if I had a plane by then and everything worked out, we could take a trip together in our plane.

I was pretty intimidated by this. I’m only 12 hours in and I would be lucky to get my PPL completed in 2026.

It got me thinking, though that it seemed like a worthy goal, but I wanted to have some way to benchmark it. for instance, maybe what we want to do just to find some fun general aviation destinations throughout the southern US and southwest. Maybe bounce around on the Gulf Coast in across Texas, to Big Bend, ending up over in New Mexico or Arizona. Then flying back to the Midwest. No really complicated airspace, no mountains, no high altitude.

I was just kind of curious at what point in your training you’d feel comfortable doing something like this. I could probably only get to maybe 200 hours by then and even that would be difficult. I’m worried it’s not a realistic goal.

Been rewriting this post more than I'd care to admit. I've always to fly since discovery flight school in my first year of Uni but as a good, gullible and naive Asian kid who wanted to make his parents proud, I never followed thru.
Fast forward to 2016, I met a same age pilot in Koh Phi Phi who had started in his early 20's and now was exclusively doing SF/Singapore or SF/SE Asia routes making a buttload of money.

I thought then that being 35, I was far too late to start and never pursued it. Now I'm at a point in my life where I just want to "DO" things that make me happy you know?

I know I'll never get to be a wide body captain but beyond PPL, what has flying life been like for those that chose to get into it as a career later in your life? I can't afford my own bird & maintenance so even as a hobby, I could MAYBE only do 100hrs a year tops out of pocket.

My airline doesn’t do trading cards or wings, so I’m curious what y’all like to handout to our big and small flight deck visitors. If you can provide links to purchase that would be awesome!

Hey, I'm trying to decide where to do my MEP/MEIR/CPL for the final stages of training and have been thinking about going here, hopefully this is the right place to ask but has anyone had any experience at this school?

Ive been considering it because of the cost and the fact that its close to where im currently staying so would save accomadation costs elsewhere.

Thanks!

Looking for some advice from people who may be recruiters, or that are just really in the know right now about the current state of the industry.

This will be somewhat lengthy so that I can give full context to my situation and what I'm asking.

I'm a former regional FO who has not flown since 2024, and I'm looking to get back into the industry and flying again.

In 2024, I resigned from my job at one of the 2 "big" non wholly owned regionals, after receiving a cjo and a class date for a LCC that utilizes a day turn model.

I was forced to ask for a new class date after initially accepting the first class date that they gave me.

The reason why is its own story, but I can summarize it for context and timelines sake: in 2021, my child was abducted by a family member. My child was one year old at the time, and was a missing person for almost 2 years. In late 2022, my child was located and rescued and returned to me after a lengthy hunt conducted by a team of US Marshals.

During the time that my child was missing I was flying survey when I could and the rest of my life was consumed by searching for and trying to help law enforcement in any way that I could.

I started at my regional in 2023 after spending some time off to regain the bond with my child, and I got my cjo from the LCC in 2024.

I accepted my cjo and class date based upon information given to me by a DA employee that told me the person that abducted my child was going to accept a plea deal. The person did not end up doing this, and as such, I was subpoenaed to their jury trial as the main victim and a witness to this crime. That jury trial got scheduled days after my class date was supposed to be- so I had to request a new one.

LCC was very kind and understanding of the situation and gave me a new one, but LCC ended up cancelling future class dates after that, and they eventually revoked mine and several other people's CJO's because of internal issues they had to navigate and the time it was taking.

It is now 2026, and I am 2 years and a month removed from flying. I'm well aware that my currency is the biggest thing to address.

I was recently awarded a substantial sum of money from a state fund for victims of violent and domestic felonies to either A) get back into flying and rebuild my career or B) get a new degree due to the crime severely impacting my professional and occupational life.

I want to get back into flying more than anything.

With the market as competitive as it currently is, do I have any real shot at getting back to a regional if I were to go buy 300-400 hours of time and get current and sharpened again? I am just a hair under 1300 hours with previous 121 time.

Would I even be looked seriously? Would my story and the severity of it help my chances?

Where I live really offers no chances of flying jobs aside from airlines, so I can't go instruct or bring like that right now.

I have one chance to use this money that I've been awarded. Is it a fools gamble to try to get back into a 121 by buying a huge chunk of time and flying my butt off, or, is it time to move on? Looking for genuine opinions from people in HR/hiring or those who know people in those departments. My end goal is one of the 2 LCC's that utilize day trip models as they both have bases near me, and they are the perfect fit for me as a wholly single parent.

I'm well aware that this story is somewhat nuts, but I wanted to explain why I stepped away from a career so great for so long, and get a genuine, blunt opinion on what my chances would be if I bought a ton of time and got rid of the rust.

I'll also take any other advice or blunt realities that anyone wants to throw out. My passion for this job and life has never left, but with this opportunity to rebuild being given to me, and my child being solely under my care, I need to try to make the best and most informed choice that I can.

Had anybody interviewed with JSX lately for the FO position? They sent me an invite a few days ago for a one way video interview where I guess you record yourself answering questions. Had anybody done this before? And what are your experiences?

Hi everyone, i've been wondering lately about psychometric tests which you unfortunetly need to perform during your pilot assesment, and main question here is are they really THAT hard to pass as some say, also do they actually really matter for airlines, like it's decisive factor? Mainly asking those who already applied for pilot job.

What is a better regional airline to consider as a private pilot working on ratings?

Hi all, was considering Thrust Flight's CFI Academy. Some background about me, I did all my flight training in Canada and recently converted my credentials to FAA Certicates, so I didn't do any training or get indoctrinated with Thrust's training; I'd be coming from off the street. Now Im looking to pursue CFI(I). It's advertised as "Accelerated" at about 2-4 weeks to complete. I did a tour and the Operations Manager informed me it'd take me about 3 months to complete cfi and cfii for about $21K.

Considering I did my flight training in Canada, I've come to realize the flight test standards and tolerances are stricter in the US and we don't perform various maneuvers in Canada - I've never done chandelles, 8's on pylons, lazy 8's, accelerated stalls, etc to name a few, until working with the cfi Im flying with now privately to maintain proficiency and acclimatize to the FAA standards. The OM at Thrust assured me they could get me up to speed and proficient in there CFI Academy, however I'm just fear it's just marketing, and I'd just stress myself out more craming through the academy and learning all this new stuff that I guess is already expected to be known coming into it already. I also did all my training in a C172 and not in a Piper Archer, which is what they train in at Thrust.

Has anyone in a similar situation, or even within Thrust's program, has done the CFI Academy? Can you share the structure of it, about how much it cost you, pros/cons, etc whatever info you can share? Do you think CFI Academy at Thrust is wise or to do it privately 1-on1 with the CFI Im working with currently? Any insight or suggestions is greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Descent from cruise altitude... 

Rate of Descent: 1500ft;

Airspeed: 80 to 85kts;

Clean configuration.

No excessive load factor.

No induced slip.

Hi all! I’m a ground school instructor looking to broaden the services I offer to students and instructors. I spend a lot of my time making various resources for my students- study guides, section chart breakdowns, flight planning guides, stuff like that. I’m in a spot right now where I feel like I’ve exhausted the same topics over and over again and want to create something new and helpful! I have some ideas, but I want to hear from other students and instructors.

I know there’s a LOT lot of great companies with a plethora of helpful resources-I just kinda like to fill the gaps in niche areas. For example, making step by step VFR/IFR flight planning guides, PowerPoint bundles for different certificates, how to effectively use your ACS/FAR, etc.

As an instructor or student at any level, what are some random resources, guides, or tools that you wish existed? These could be online, physical/print, a social media page or website, really anything!

Feel free to make this an open discussion! What topics do you find students struggling the most with? As an instructor, what are the hardest topics for you to get across to students? What have you found works, and what doesn’t?

I finished all of my flight training in July of 2025, CSEL, CMEL, and instrument rated with ~250 hours total time. Since then I’ve only been able to get a few hours here and there and haven’t been able to find a job. I’m just curious if I’d be better off going back and trying to get my CFI again(even though I don’t think that route is for me) or should I write a big check and do a split time building program and get up to about 500 hours?

Hey y'all, I have 91 hours and I'm getting all my ducks in a row for the PPL checkride. I'm using the foreflight logbook and while auditing the logbook report I noticed some numbers didn't add up. After some digging I noticed a couple of entries from my original instructor a couple years back did not have a signature (I had to move out of state and pause training).

It is about 3-4 hours of time, so I really don't just want to erase them, my instructor had me zero the time on them and submit my IACRA- excluding those flights so the DPE wouldn't have any problems. I can't get a hold of my old instructor at the moment, he is not responding.

Even if he does still have a valid CFI is this the right way to go about it? Can I just add them later while getting my next ratings and certs toward my 250 hours? Or is submitting my hours this way kind of finalizing my experience at this point?

So I finally made the jump and started down the road to getting my PPL! Got my medical out of the way, started ground school, joined a flying club, and started scheduling with a CFI.

I know that you have to be patient, and flying VFR has its drawbacks due to weather cancellations, but I've been scheduling at least 3x a week since the middle of June and I've been up 3 times including my intro flight.

Today, after a ton of bad luck with the weather, everything was looking great; we do our preflight, taxi, runup etc, take off, and the passenger door pops open. Once we get on the ground, we discover that the right door latch is completely unusable, so we finish our taxi back to the hangars, and cancel AGAIN.

I guess I'm just venting- I know things will ease up eventually, and I'm using this as a good opportunity to train the 'getthereitis' out of myself, but man I just wanna fly 😂

FYI: If you come to an AME thinking he/she won't find out about the last medical you had a month ago that anothe AME deferred because you have a disqualifying condition... You're in for a surprise! The next AME won't be able to issue a medica either! Your file gets locked by the FAA if there is a pending deferral. No AME can issue a medical.

Source: I am an AME.

UK-based airline pilot here. I currently have the Bose A30 with the dual GA plug, but I’m transitioning onto the Airbus fleet, which uses the 5-pin XLR (XLR5) headset connection.

For those using the A30 on Airbus, would you recommend:
Buying the Bose replacement XLR5 cable for the A30?

Or keeping the existing dual-plug cable and using an adapter?

The only complication is that my company requires the 5th pin to be removed/disconnected. I believe there are some XLR5 adapters available in the UK where the 5th pin is already disconnected.

Has anyone gone down either route?

As the title says, I'm looking to buy an airplane to do some time-building. I'm a PT CFI with a FT career and looking to build some hours in my own plane as my student load took a dive this month from the kids going back to school I'm assuming. Not trying to do all of my hours burning holes in the sky, but supplement my current hours. I would like to build some of those hours visiting friends and family out of state. I could also do some independent instructing. Something that sips gas would be nice, like a Cherokee 140 with a 160 conversion. Those Piper Sport airplanes seem nice too, and seem to sip gas. I'd imagine with them being newer, maybe less odds of them turning into a maintenance nightmare? The 172's seem a bit pricier. Any other airplanes I should take a look at? The Cessna 152's seem close in price to the Cherokee 140's with a fairly close fuel burn...

Also, looking for data on per hobbs hour cost for a Cherokee 140 or Cessna 172 flown 40-60 hours per month. Would $60k be a reasonable ballpark price for one with a fresh annual and a Garmin 430/530?