PilotWorkshops courses now available in training app

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
5 min read

Sporty’s Pilot Training app has helped tens of thousands of pilots earn their pilot certificates, add new ratings, learn how to use various advanced avionics systems and get checked out in new aircraft types. The platform is well-known for its fast pace of innovation, bringing new content, new training tools, and technological enhancements every year.

The latest update delivers a collection of exciting new courses and digital pilot manuals from the team at PilotWorkshops in the app. These new training products were designed to take your VFR and IFR flying skills to the next level and maximize the utility of your pilot certificate. Each course and manual is available as an in-app purchase in the Pilot Training app, or available directly from Sporty’s website.

Real World VFR Online Course

This fun and educational course will give you the confidence to fly cross-country flights in VFR conditions, whether your destination is a remote island runway or a busy Class B airline hub. Ride along with an experienced pilot and flight instructor as they fly ten end-to-end flights.

Scenarios include:

  • Find a small, remote island airport at night
  • Land at Boston Logan Airport (Class B) VFR in a Cessna 172
  • Fly the New York City Hudson River VFR Corridor, and then land at Teterboro, one of the busiest Class Delta airports in the world
  • Depart at night in the mountains, using an IFR technique to avoid them
  • Encounter VFR into IMC for real, at night
  • Manage system failures, simulated emergencies, and other surprises
  • Use the power of ForeFlight for VFR planning and in-flight situations
  • Navigate cross-country, using only pilotage and dead reckoning
  • Takeoff and land on short fields—some grass, some paved, some scary
  • Get sucked into a “black hole approach,” but escape to avoid disaster
  • Make an overwater crossing that is eerily similar to the JFK Jr. flight

Watch a sample video here

Advanced IFR Online Course

Earning an instrument rating is a major achievement, but many pilots soon realize that flying IFR on a trip is different from the checkride. This online course includes nine end-to-end flights that explain and demonstrate some overlooked IFR procedures, going far beyond the basics of approaches and holding patterns.

Scenarios include:

  • Tower Enroute Control (TEC) routes
  • Diverse Vector areas at non-towered airports
  • Custom waypoints in a GPS flight plan
  • Graphical ODPs
  • Standard Instrument Departures (SIDs)
  • Published visual climbs over airport (VCOA)
  • Best practices for negotiating with ATC
  • Vertical navigation with GPS and autopilot
  • Cold temperature restrictions
  • Contact approaches
  • Circling approach survival secrets
  • Taxi hot spots

Watch a sample video here

IFR Procedures Digital Manual

The majority of instrument-rated GA pilots struggle to maintain IFR proficiency. It’s a real problem and something PilotWorkshops has seen repeatedly over the past 17 years providing IFR training. The manual aims to help with that task, by breaking each IFR procedure down into individual tasks, and explaining in detail how to complete each one.

Topics covered include:

  • Clearances: towered airport, non-towered, pop-up
  • Departures: ODPs, visual climbs, flying a SID
  • En route: choosing an altitude, block altitudes, VFR on top
  • Arrivals: descent planning, flying STARs, choosing an approach
  • Approaches: visual and contact approaches, vectors, glide paths, circling to land, missed approaches
  • Unusual cases: cruise clearance, practice approaches, ASR/PAR approaches
  • Post-flight: canceling an IFR flight plan

View Sample Pages Here

Airplane Engines Digital Manual

Finally, aviation books written for pilots, not lawyers! Fully illustrated with color photos and graphics, this Pilot-Friendly Manual from PilotWorkshops is much more than a quick reference guide—it dives deep into the finer points of airplane systems and procedures. Learn how to get the most performance, dependability and longevity from your engine with this plain English manual. It takes you under the cowl for a look at what’s really happening when you hit the starter.

Topics covered include:

  • Basic engine principles
  • How to read an engine monitor
  • Checking fuel and oil
  • Starting techniques for Lycoming and Continental
  • Pre-takeoff checks
  • Leaning for climb and cruise
  • Selecting a cruise power setting
  • Airborne ignition checks
  • In-flight troubleshooting
  • Engine preheating
  • New cylinder break-in
  • Analyzing engine data
  • Checking for exhaust leaks
  • Oil changes and oil samples
  • Managing logbook entries
  • Choosing oil and additives

View Sample Pages Here

Emergency Strategies Digital Manual

Facing an actual in-flight emergency can be surreal. Sometimes pilots don’t hesitate and immediately fall back on their training. But often, gripped by fear, they’re reluctant to admit that an emergency is actually happening. Instead of addressing the situation, they waste precious time watching it unfold. What’s needed is a way for pilots to mentally practice and build a flexible response to any emergency.

In this manual, Pilot Workshops groups the nearly infinite number of emergency situations into 11 general categories, and presents strategies you can use to handle those kinds of emergencies. The goal is to help you build a framework to address each kind of emergency more effectively.

Topics covered include:

  • Power loss down low
  • Power loss up high
  • Fires: engine starting and in-flight
  • In-flight upsets
  • Flight control malfunction
  • Systems failure
  • VFR into IMC
  • Pilot or passenger impairment
  • Dangerous distractions
  • Landing complications
  • Unavoidable crash

View Sample Pages Here

VFR Communications Digital Manual

The Pilot-Friendly VFR Communications Digital Manual will help you improve on the radio, regardless of your flying experience. Whether you’re a student pilot trying to learn this new language, or an experienced pilot who skirts busy airspace to avoid talking on the radio, this simple pilot radio communications guide gives you the confidence to do it right.

View sample pages here

This manual also includes 54 videos covering each communication scenario in the app, demonstrating the phraseology you should use for each and what to expect from ATC.

IFR Communications Digital Manual

If you feel intimidated by IFR communications, you’re not alone. The IFR system is complex, and the number of radio calls pilots must understand can be overwhelming. That’s a problem. There are instrument-rated pilots who avoid flying IFR altogether. Some pilots let mic fright prevent them from getting the instrument rating at all.

This IFR communications guide eases that pain by using the secret to IFR radio work: virtually all communications follow a script. Once you know the basic script, the variations become simple, and that’s how this book works.

View Sample Pages Here

This manual also includes 81 videos covering each communication scenario, demonstrating the phraseology you should use for each and what to expect from ATC.

 

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *