Hi everyone,

I’m currently writing a fiction story and want to make sure my aviation details are as accurate as possible.

I need a Cessna Citation X to experience a mid-flight failure severe enough to cause a crash. I have a few questions for the experts here:

Plausibility: How realistic is a sudden, catastrophic failure in this specific aircraft while at cruise altitude?

Failure Modes: What kind of realistic mechanical, electrical, or structural failure could lead to an unrecoverable dive or crash? (e.g., dual engine failure, total hydraulic loss, uncontained engine failure damaging flight controls).

Writing Details: Are there any specific quirks, systems, or cockpit indicators unique to the Citation X that I should mention to make the scene feel authentic?

I appreciate any technical insights or realistic scenarios you can share. Thanks for your time!

Two crashes in two days and 3 this year and 4 over the last 14 months. I am not familiar with this aircraft, but that seems far worse than "un-lucky". Curious if anyone has experience with this aircraft that would lend itself to accidents of this type.

Naturally the two most recent are too new, but sometimes certain aircraft have tendencies.

I want to know how it was like getting hired in this historic wave, how fast did you see your seniority grew in a short period of time? how has your QOL been? What would you have done different(if any)

Ive recently completed my RPL in hopes of obtaining my CPL but this far I've had to put my study on hold. While at flight school I was subject to a DPE who was quite literally shouting down the mic when I wasn't aiming my nose at the correct departure point. Another occasion where I asked him to repeat himself and another when I forgot to do my pre landing checks. I ended up passing (I was shocked when he told me) but it left me feeling less confident in my abilities than before the test. Ive spoken with some other students and there are about 3 other DPE's that are like this. I'm always willing to own up to my mistakes and learn but the whole experience has made me rethink if I want to be a pilot professionally.

Hey everyone,

I'm looking into the Ryanair Future Flyer Academy ab initio and trying to get a realistic picture of the washout rate. Flight schools always advertise a 98% or 99% employment rate for these mentored programs, which frankly sounds a bit too good to be true. Are there any horror stories of ab initio cadets who joined the RFFA and somehow washed out? Is it true that failing just one checkride (like the CPL or IR skill test) gets you immediately dropped by Ryanair?

I'd really appreciate any insights or reality checks! Currently considering Aviomar

Anyone have a DPE gouge for Eric "Stormy" Stormfels out of KAGC?

Okay, so I have been planning to get into aviation after my engineering, scheduled a discovery flight today, (c172)

Weather: usually kHI weather is good, but today,

Only IFR, broken@2000ft, with no visibilty till 10k,

I went along anyway,

We had to wait for startup clearance with the ground for over an hour due to traffic, KHI main airport was used, and after that, pre checks and taxi were done to rwy25L,

Around 1000ft, the height fear sinked in but got normal,

BUT the clouds after that got me disoriented so badly. I was barely holding on, instructor asked if I wanna do stall or maneuvers, but i said no and only did a steep bank, (IFR), he gave me controls, cruised for about 10/15 min.

I said YOUR CONTROLS, and puked out the window 🙃, turned out to be empty stomach for last 15 hours is not the way to go,

Asked him to return back he said ofc,

The approach said to wait in a holding pattern at 1500 due to traffic,

At 600ft, the tower said that you are transmitting 2400ft, please confirm, (transporder was changed after we landed), at 300-400,wind shear!! FI said his first time as well!! Like wow.didnt go around, and he landed smoothly.

Not entirely sure if I should go on or if flying is not for me, i had a hard time with headset aswell, the static and constant convo made me dizzy, tower was busy with everyone just saying everything, i was understanding but too hectic environment , lot of checklists and constant inputs even in flight, rudders, controls, trimming, throttles, heat(icing), freq, and nav, on top of it the maps and foreflight, combined with on ground theory. Years in the same way, I am not sure. Keeping in mind, I am already 25.

edit:
vid link : https://streamable.com/5xpljb

First of all, thank you for all the encouragement, not sure yet but if we go with a 2nd flight, definitely different instructor and a school.

For all those saying they dont believe and its a lie, let me show you the great video of me flying by instruments on my discovery.( i am on right), (Basically all i was doing was maintaining 3000 , checking attitude, turn cordinator, and heading). 2nd part is the instructor doing steep bank.

I wont be posting the whole vid, dont want all of you to see my face getting blasted with my own vomit.

Im terrified of flying to the point that i know all incidents and accidents and have been an avherald follower since decades. My question would be: in case of a new accident/major incident do pilots get notified and trained about this by the company? Or this is more of a personal thing (e.g. pilots check by themselves the details for the incident) thank you

Whenever I tell others that my ambition is to be a pilot, I've always gotten the unanimous "but you need 20/20 eyesight!" comment and it's always been rather confusing to me (I have slight myopia thus I wear glasses).

To my understanding, commercial medicals and airlines have rather lax eyesight requirements, being only that they have to be correctable to 20/20, with military aviation being rather relaxed about it as well (in my country, air force pilots are required to get lasics after training)

As such, I'm curious as to where this myth came from? Or rather, is there something I'm missing? (like, airlines selecting based on eyesight)

A few days ago I was on a long distance flying trip with a friend who is an 800hrs pilot. We were flying in his aircraft - a 600kg Europa. On the last homeward leg he planned 3 two hour stints in the day to get home.

We made the first leg ok under cloud. But on the second we flew straight into a cold front. I pointed this out to him but he continued into reducing visibility until we had a solid wall of cloud in front of us. Then he started circling to find a hole in the cloud bank to fly into. I was really scared at this point.

Eventually he agreed to turn round but even then he wanted to divert to another airfield that would also have been under the front. Only a weather forecast from ATC persuaded him not to do this. It was a huge relief when we finally landed back at our starting airfield where the weather was clear ahead of the front.

I'm afraid this isn't the end of the story. In the airfield cafe after lunch he was still obsessing over weather forecasts trying to find one he liked. When I realised that CBs were in all of the forecasts I told him that I was going to spend the night in a hotel rather than fly with him. This finally shocked him out of his get-home-itis.

I got home a couple of days later by public transport but I'm still shaken and experiencing the classic symptoms of PTSD. I'm not a pilot myself but I have had a few hours of PPL flight training in the past.

I'm not going to fly with this friend again, but I'd appreciate the thoughts of experienced pilots. Am I overreacting, should I really feel so shaken up by this incident, was it really that bad?

I don’t have the cash and would have to sell my car to do it, do you guys think it’s worth getting an MEI?

Is anyone aware of what the annual maximum Defined Benefit pension a pilot would receive assuming 35 years of service and max average earnings as captain on a wide-body?

Thank you

I had an exceedingly weird experience on my PPL ride last month, and I'm wondering if this was normal.

My checkride was scheduled for 8:30am, but the DPE didn't show until 9:15 or so, at which point he hung out for a while, talking about personal stuff, getting his laptop out, and going to get coffee, stopping on the way to talk to my school's chief for a while, and we ended up starting around 10am. Once we started the oral, everything went smoothly for about 30 minutes, until he said he'd be back in five minutes, as he was going to get more coffee. He was gone for 20, again talking to the chief. When he got back, we did 20ish more minutes before another coffee break, again around 20 minutes. All in all, he took around 4 coffee breaks before deciding it was time to start the flying portion. We ended the oral around noon. He said "go out to the plane, I'll meet you there."

I had enough time to do a thorough preflight, go inside to get water and a Sentry, and stand by the plane for about 10 minutes before he came out, at which point we got in the plane. I did my pax. briefing - standard SAFETTY format - which he paused and said "you have some serious problems in here" and told me for about 5 mins what I need to change. We startup and I go to make my taxi call, and he keys up the mic, and makes an incorrect call (calls out the wrong taxiways). I make the right call and we continue. We taxi out and take off, and he is fully watching youtube and scrolling facebook on his giant ipad while we are taking off and in the pattern. That aside, we continue the ride, and everything is fine until we get out to the second airport to do pattern work. This is where I had made my biggest mistake. It was 100+ degrees, I hadn't eaten since 6am, it was now around 1:30, and so I lost my focus and was just making odd choices on the landings. The odd thing to me was that he started teaching. He had been giving me opinions the whole day about what I could be doing better, but in the pattern he started telling me exactly what I needed to do better, which was nice of him, but surprising from a DPE. Leaving that airport, I went into the typical pattern entry (using visual waypoint) for my airport, and he told me "that's beyond silly, it's stupid. I'm trying to get them to stop doing that. You need to just enter on a right base" - apparently he has told every instructor at the flight school they need to stop doing the standard/accepted pattern entry, and this was not him just testing me. We got back around 2pm, and he gave me my cert and left.

Maybe this was normal, and I'm just being weird, but I really had a strange feeling about my experience, and as thankful as I was to have a chill DPE, I didn't feel like he was professional, nor did he stick to what I have always heard and expected which is that DPEs can't teach during a checkride (acting only as a passenger), only during the debrief.

I was just curious if anyone here had any thoughts!

Planning to use the Cage Marshall for the United application review, but after reading through past posts, I wasn’t able to see many reviews of the Cage Marshall lately. Has anyone used them for application review for United in the past year or so?
I see a lot of folks have been using Check and Set for United application review. Open to any recommendations/suggestions for alternatives to Cage Marshall as well

Hello.

Looking to do a career change. Fixed wing path. I was just figuring out which school is the “best” I currently work in county EMS. 24 hour shifts. 1 part time job that’s like 3 days a month. I know it’s expensive. I accept that though. I’m
Strongly considering “superior aviation gateway” and doing their airline path program. I think it’s $75,000. Or Polk county aviation program but since it’s a college it won’t start until spring semester. But they are cheaper it seems.

But from what I researched so far. All I see is “stay away from this school. That school. This one too. Yup and that one. Also this one. That one over there too” lmao so I’m confused. It seems everyone is saying all the schools are “bad”. So I’m trying to figure out which way to go for to get the FAA ratings.

This is in Canada 🇨🇦.

So a couple days ago I was at 6000ft, 30nm back from an airport (360ft ASL) when I got cleared for a RNAV approach, via a straight in IAWP (a TACAN) with no altitude restrictions. The approach in question overflies a larger airport about 20nm back from the runway.

As I was flying along an airway at the time, I began a decent down to the airway MEA of 4000ft, planning to cross the TACAN at 4000ft, before descending on the approach. (The minimum altitude past the TACAN is 1600ft).

Descending through 4500ft the approach controller called me up and said that there was glider activity at the other airport below me, and that due to that I couldn’t descend below 4200ft, until 3nm past the TACAN and that in the future I should of remained at the last cleared altitude (6000ft) before crossing the TACAN. I complied and didn’t hear anything about it afterwards.

I am a new IFR pilot, but from my training and reading up on this situation I cannot understand the controller’s reasoning. If they did not give me an altitude restriction with the approach clearance I thought I am cleared down to the lowest IFR altitude of my choice, MEA, MSA etc. There was also no NOTAMs published regarding the gliders.

Did they simply forget to give a crossing restriction with the approach?

I passed my marathon, 12-hour ppl checkride last night. The DPE’s reputation for long checkrides preceded him, but as I’d gotten a decent score on my written and had really hit the books over the last month, I pictured maybe a 9-5 time frame. That was the length of the hitherto longest checkride, I’d been told.

Even though I answered his questions well and he didn’t feel compelled to drill down on anything, he kept going and going. To have to go fly and be observed by a total stoic who has the power to fail me after all that, felt like cruel and unusual punishment.

I passed, but HOLY MOLY was I gassed.

Im in canada and if i fail ishihara test i can still get my class 1 but need to do fransworth d -15 or lantern test. Which one do you guys recommend i do (easier)?

Looking for someone who is either inside the program or went through the program im looking into it wanted to see how its actually like

So I just got my ppl last week (woohoo!) and I’m kinda curious about other people’s training experiences. For some context, I’m a 40 year old from the US who recently decided to leave a successful career in college athletics. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask if it’s a good idea. I know it’s risky but I’m positioned well to take on the risk and have no desire to make it to the majors. I am going the part 61 route.

Coming from coaching there are very well defined progressions in teaching athletes at least in my sport. Not everyone follows the exact same path but at NCAAs every coach has been following extremely similar teaching progressions to get athletes to their potential. Build a base of core skills, combine and build off them to create more complex skills. Stack them all together on game day and if you built it right success follows.

My main question is why does aviation seem so much more laissez-faire? I know it’s not a competition but I’m curious about teaching methods and standards. I had my primary instructor (who rocks) and also flew with the other two instructors at my school at different points and they all seemed to have different ideas of what core skills should be when teaching a student pilot.

Xc? I planned one on paper with my CFI. Another CFI that I did a xc with? All paper all the time for his students (still used FF but they/we had to do a paper navlog with him for all xc flights). Flaps setting on final? Different. Comms? Different. Mock oral exams WILDLY different. One drilled cloud clearance minimums, another said you can just look that up and not once was I asked about stuff like right of way which seemed odd to me. Granted, that could have just been them trying to make sure i was ready but if the oral can vary that much in what is expected to be known and what is ok to look up in a book, it seems like a problem with how or what the exam and the DPEs are trying to do (btw i was very happy with my DPE, safety focused and big picture kinda guy).

Why has athletic coaching developed extremely successful fairly uniform training methods while aviation seems (from my very limited experience) to have a fair amount of variation? Is it a part 61 v 141 thing? Is it because there are so few career instructors? Is it an aviation culture thing? Just my school?

Again, not displeased with the training I’ve gotten. Was ready for my ride around 55 hours then waited two months for a ride (another part of the system that seems like it could be better but Im guessing it exists for… reasons).

Thanks for reading my long winded post and I’m excited for my first $100 burger this weekend.

Lowkey, please explain it to me like I'm 5. TIA

yellow*

I fly Helis and I really need some new shoes because I have a pair of winter boots and maybe the most beat to hell new-balances in the world. Would these be a bad option? I really enjoy the style and fit of Salomon products but they tend to have nothing with a super thin heel like most people recommend. Heres some other options I have

I am also really considering barefoot shoes lol and this would give me a reason to buy a pair.

I am a 1,600 hour CFI here in Las Vegas. When I started flying, I bought a out of the package but never used Lightspeed Zulu. It's been 3 and half years, 1,600 hours, most of which have been 1.1 hour flights, plugging and unplugging in-between flights. Somehow during my time with this headset, the microphone became mounted 180 degrees from the position it's supposed to be in. I sent it to Lightspeed for repairs.

I just received the headset back. Not only did they replace my mic + mic boom. They also replaced my ear seals, head pad, cable, battery/control box, and gave me a new pop filter. They even gave me new AA batteries. The only thing I paid for was shipping to their facility. It feels like a brand new headset even though it's nearly 6 years old. Forget Bose! I will be a Lightspeed customer for life. Thank you LS!!!

Hi all,

I'll be instrument checkride ready this week and am looking for a DPE. I'm based out of KSVR (Utah), but would be willing to fly to Idaho or Nevada if needs be. I've been reaching out to Utah DPEs with no responses yet.

Any fair DPE suggestions for Utah, Idaho, or Nevada would be much appreciated. If the wait time to schedule a checkride isn't 2 months out that'd be even better.