The Pilot's Manual: Ground School by The Pilot's Manual Editorial Team

The Pilot's Manual: Ground School by The Pilot's Manual Editorial Team

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Before taking to the sky, a pilot's education begins on the ground. For over 35 years, The Pilot's Manual: Ground School has introduced pilots to aerodynamics, airplane systems and flight instruments, human factors, weather, and flight operations. This textbook provides everything a pilot needs to know to earn a Private Pilot or Commercial Pilot Certificate.

The seventh edition of Ground School covers all the required knowledge tested on the Private and Commercial FAA Knowledge Exams and the oral portion of the practical exam (checkride). With text supported by more than 800 full-color illustrations and photos, students will gain a detailed understanding of complex topics such as airplane and airport operations, regulations, human physiology in flight, chart reading, navigation and airspace, operational weather factors, aircraft performance, flight planning, and more. Content is organized to facilitate a building-block approach to learning and aligns with ASA's Test Prep series.

Pilots seeking their Commercial Pilot Certificate will find separate, clearly labeled sections throughout this book to prepare for the Commercial Pilot FAA Knowledge Exam. Review questions (and answer keys) for each chapter reinforce essential concepts to aid home or classroom study. An extensive glossary of aviation abbreviations and acronyms and a detailed index are included.

Foreword by Barry Schiff. This book is part of The Pilot's Manual Series--used by leading universities as their standard classroom texts.



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About the Pilot's Manual Editorial Team:

David Robson
David Robson is a career aviator having been nurtured on balsa wood, dope (the legal kind) and tissue paper. He made his first solo flight shortly after his seventeenth birthday, having made his first parachute jump just after his sixteenth. His first job was as a junior draftsman (they weren't persons in those days) at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation in Melbourne, Australia. At that time he was also learning to fly de Havilland Chipmunks with the Royal Victorian Aero Club.
He joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1965 and served for twenty-one years as a fighter pilot and test pilot. He flew over 1,000 hours on Mirages and 500 on Sabres (F-86). He completed the Empire Test Pilots' course in England in 1972, flying everything from gliders to Lightning fighters and Argosy transport aircraft. He completed a tour in Vietnam as a forward air controller flying the USAF 0-2A (Oscar Deuce). In 1972 he was a member of the Mirage formation aerobatic team, the Deltas, which celebrated the RAAF's 50th anniversary.
After retiring from the Air Force he became a civilian instructor and lecturer and spent over ten years with the Australian Aviation College, a specialized international school for airline cadet pilots. During 1986-88 he was the editor of the national safety magazine, the Aviation Safety Digest, which won the Flight Safety Foundation's international award. He was recently awarded the Australian Aviation Safety Foundation's Certificate of Air Safety.
David holds an ATP license and instructor's rating. His particular ambition is to see the standard of flight and ground instruction improved and for aviation instruction to be recognized as a career and be adequately rewarded.

Jackie Spanitz
Jackie earned a B.S. in Aviation Technology and Operations from Western Michigan University and earned a M.S. from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. As Curriculum Director for ASA, Jackie oversees new and existing product development, ranging from textbooks and flight computers to electronic and online tutorials, and integration of these products into curricula. She also conducts aviation research as well as product development and project management. She holds Flight and Ground Instructor Certificates. Jackie is the author of Guide to the Flight Review and the technical editor for ASA's Test Prep Series.

Madeline Mimi Tompkins
Madeline Tompkins is an experienced flight instructor, current Boeing 737-300/400 airline captain and crew resource management facilitator. She is well known for her part as copilot in an airliner emergency in Hawaii, about which a TV movie was made. She has received many honors, including the AOPA Air Safety Foundation's Distinguished Pilot award. A former FAA designated flight examiner, she is currently an FAA accident prevention counselor, designated knowledge test examiner, and she also teaches CFI refresher courses.

Martin E. Weaver
Martin Weaver is an experienced flight and ground instructor in airplanes, helicopters, and gliders. He is a former chief flight instructor and designated pilot examiner, who has been closely involved with standardization procedures for over 14 years. He holds a B.S. from the University of Southern Mississippi. He is currently a pilot in the Oklahoma Army National Guard.

Amy Laboda
Amy Laboda is a freelance writer, editor, and active flight instructor. She is a member of the American Flyers Judith Resnik Scholarship committee and former editor at Flying magazine. She has recently been appointed as editor of Women in Aviation. She has a rotorcraft category, a gyroplane rating, a glider rating and a multi-engine ATP rating. She also holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College.

Melanie Waddell
Melanie began flying in 1994 and was awarded a Bachelor of Technology in Aviation studies from Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia in 1997. She is a current commercial, multi-engine and instrument-rated pilot as well as a Grade I flight instructor. She hopes to captain a wide-body jet in the not-too-distant future.