There are a few critical things that every pilot needs to fly.  You might be thinking those things are money, fuel, and airspeed, often in that order.  True, but today we're talking about two documents that every pilot must have with them to fly; their pilot...

I like to think of myself as a "defensive driver." When I get to a four way stop, and I stop, I don't just glance around and go again. What if someone coming from another direction fails to stop? That means I'm getting hit. Sure, it's not my fault, but who cares about...

If you've been flying for much time at all, you've probably noticed that a significant portion of flight training is dedicated to handling deviations from the norm (or the "abnorm" as I have coined it).  A classic example is when your instructor pulls the throttle out...

Some of the concepts that we have to grasp in aviation are fairly straightforward. If you nose the plane over towards the ground, you tend to speed up. Wind blows you sideways, so you have to correct for that drift by adjusting your heading into the wind. These...

What time is it right now? Look at your watch or your phone. Your answer will likely differ from mine and others, even if we are all checking at the same moment in time. Think about the strike of midnight on New Years Eve, marking the turn of the new year. Everyone in...

When flying to another airport for a hundred dollar hamburger, a big part of the tradition is simply finding an excuse to fly somewhere. But that doesn't mean that the culinary experience that you have at the destination airport isn't significant. After all, food is a...

It's not hard to convince anyone that flying is an incredible way to travel. It's faster and often more convenient than other modes of transportation. It's the times when things go wrong that people fear the most. As a pilot, I'm not immune to that fear. Even as a...

"Alright, you can go with us, but we'll have to go with half full tanks." The amount of seats in an airplane can be deceiving. I fly a Cessna 172, which has four seats, but carrying four people is rarely a reality. To know what I can carry, I have to run some weight...

We know that what goes up must come down, but when I was in flight training, I always had a hard time determining exactly when to come down. I'd tend to begin my descent to an airport too late, when it was in clear view, leaving me with a more rapid descent than...

It's been said that getting your Private Pilot Certificate is a "license to learn." It's true that you should continue to learn from every flight you take; no pilot ever knows it all.  And while enjoying and exploring the privileges of a Private Pilot is fun on its...

When I was learning to fly, I didn't have nearly the resources that exist today, especially when it comes to technology. Don't worry, this isn't a lecture on how things were when I was your age. In the early 2000s, when I wanted to consume aviation content, I had...

There's something to be said about doing things by the book. Learning the "textbook" way of doing things is important. For the most basic of reasons, you can't pass the test if you don't learn the textbook. In aviation, doing things the right way - by the book - is a...

It's the time of the season for giving and thankfulness, and this week's blog is a contribution to an aviation colleague who's partnership I am very thankful for.  If you've been flying first class with me at Clayviation for a while, you might recall a blog about...

It's not always too difficult to tell if the weather is good enough to fly - in the moment.  Looking up to a clear blue windless sky is a pretty good sign.  The big question with weather is often "what's going to happen next?"  On a recent flight to Nashville,...

With today's plethora of technology, making a phone call before a flight for a weather briefing seems like an unnecessary step - on the surface.  After all, programs like Foreflight can give you a step by step briefing of weather, notams, forecasts and more.  But even...

Looking intently over the instrument panel directly in front of us, my seven year old son and I went back and forth. "Is that it?" He called, pointing over one way. "No, I don't think so," I replied. "There! Those lights - is that it!?"  He called back. "Those look...