A stall is one of the scariest flight experiences that a pilot can encounter. When an airplane goes into a complete stall, it basically becomes like a boat with out a sail or rudder, but with one great exception: it doesn’t just float around in the air; it starts plummeting towards the ground, which spells doom unless the pilot can restore function to the plane’s wings and tail. In aviation, a stall is formally defined as occurring when a plane’s angle of attack increases to the point that the plane’s lift begins to decrease.

Obviously, the best way to avoid a stall of an aircraft is to be familiar with your aircraft’s critical angle of attack and be vigilant to not exceed it. Stalls invariably occur as a result of simple pilot error, but most stalls are precipitated by something that disrupts the airplane’s flight path or the pilot’s horizon orientation, such as wake turbulence, system failure, inclement weather or other conditions that create low visibility. Consequently, there is far more literature that instructs pilots on how to recover from stalls than there is literature that instructs pilots on how to avoid them.

Most modern aircraft contain technology that lets a pilot know when the critical angle of attack is near to being exceeded. Some planes alert the pilot of an impending stall with an audible warning, while other aircraft are designed to begin stalling at the wing root instead of the wing tip, which causes the yoke to vibrate. When the yoke begins vibrating, the aircraft’s wing tips are still fully operational, which allows the pilot to easily reduce angle of attack and avoid a full stall.

Instrument recovery training is usually recommended in addition to general upset recovery training and aerobatic flight training. As opposed to instrument recovery training, aerobatic training helps equip pilots with a “natural feel” for what to do upset attitude situations. Combining all three forms of training offers the best preparation for dealing with stalls. To enroll into these programs is as simple as visiting a flight program in the aviation adventure industry online.

Getting a pilot’s license with the intent on learning to fly a helicopter is a very ambitious goal. But of all of the aircraft, the helicopter is probably one of the most versatile and useful kinds of flying in society.

You don’t have to look far to find ways that helicopter pilots are getting great jobs in all segments of society. Every local news team has at least one if not several traffic or weather helicopters to help report the news. Every day these pilots whisk a news team off to the heart of a fast breaking story, often a story that is filmed directly from the cockpit of their helicopter.

The need for helicopters to assist law enforcement is easy to witness by just watching any cop or detective show on television or in the movies. But the way the pilot of the helicopter becomes a big part of many police situations is not overstated. For law enforcement, the need to get right to the heart of a crime situation is nothing short of critical. Time makes a big difference when it comes to solving a crime or stopping a dangerous situation from spiraling out of control.

Helicopter pilots can find great employment giving rides around the city during the holidays, flying busy executives to high stakes business meetings from the top of skyscrapers, whisking rock stars away from overly adoring fans or working for hospitals getting remote patients to medical care quickly and saving lives in the process. This means that the chances are your life as a helicopter pilot will be exciting, fast paced and always doing something urgent taking you to the most interesting of places.

But of the many ways that helicopter pilots find great jobs helping others in society, rescue missions may be the most meaningful. During the hurricane Katrina disaster, it was a common thing to see helicopter pilots going in and plucking people off of rooftops to take them to safety and to be reunited with their grateful families. In forest fire situations, helicopters are what are used to dump water or chemicals on the fire to try and stop the burning.

You should know the demands that will be put on you when you start on your course to learn to fly a helicopter and get a pilot’s license that says you can be counted on to handle this important vehicle with skill. Unlike a conventional airplane, the helicopter and maneuver straight up and side to side with phenomenal flexibility. It can hover over a location virtually in one place and be landed with nothing more needed than a small plot of ground to place it down on rather than a long landing field. The skill to be able to actually do these maneuvers with this precision flying machine take time and money to gain.