Best aviation sites and apps for pilots, simmers and spotters
The FAA handles more than 45,000 flights a day. Follow them on a flight tracker, hear them on LiveATC, fly them again in X-Plane, decode the METAR they departed under, or start the 40-hour minimum toward a private pilot certificate.
Compare flight trackers Price a pilot license
By Mike, private pilot, 300 hours in Cessnas, and a browser full of flight-tracking tabs.
From ADS-B feeds to A&P school
From the passenger seat to the left seat
The first lesson, the hours behind a private certificate and the bill that comes with them.
Watching traffic from the ground
Transponder signals, tower frequencies and the fence spots where airliners pass a few hundred feet overhead.
About 300 hours, nearly all in high-wing Cessnas
I learned to fly at a small Part 61 school, renting 152s and 172s by the hour. Since the checkride I've flown mostly local VFR trips, practiced radio calls on LiveATC, rehearsed approaches on a home simulator and kept a flight tracker open more often than my email.
On the ramp I prefer paper checklists and an iPad on a kneeboard over a panel-mounted screen: the checklist never needs a charge, and the iPad goes home with me.
I don't have an instrument rating yet, and I've never flown anything with more than one engine.