Flight Operations, Safety, and Aeronautical Knowledge
Planning and performance
91.103 requires the PIC to become familiar with all available information before flight: weather, fuel, alternatives, runway lengths, and takeoff and landing performance. Performance changes quickly with density altitude, wind, slope, and runway contamination, so use the POH charts conservatively and add margins.
Staying safe in the air
Wake turbulence avoidance is geometry: land after and above the preceding aircraft, rotate before its touchdown point, and stay upwind. Runway incursions come from unclear communication; read back hold-short instructions and never cross a runway without a clearance. A stabilized approach, on speed and on glidepath with the checklist complete by a defined altitude, prevents the classic approach-and-landing accident.
Human factors
Use IMSAFE before flight. Recognize hypoxia (euphoria, impaired judgment), hyperventilation, carbon monoxide (headache, nausea), and spatial disorientation (trust the instruments). Five hazardous attitudes, anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, macho, and resignation, each have an antidote. Apply a structured decision model such as 3P (perceive, process, perform) and set personal minimums.
Traps
- Performance is not linear; a small density altitude increase matters most at high weight.
- Get-there-itis questions nearly always resolve to divert or delay.
- An ELT does not guarantee notification.
Rule of thumb
Density altitude is about pressure altitude plus 120 times (OAT minus ISA temperature). At 5,000 ft pressure altitude on a 25 C day (ISA 5 C), density altitude is roughly 7,400 ft.