Pilot Resources

The NWS source for METARs, TAFs, PIREPs, AIRMETs, and SIGMETs.

Worth making your first stop every flying day. Read the raw METAR rather than a decoded one, because that is the format the examiner will hand you.

Interactive ceiling, visibility, wind, and icing charts on a timeline slider.

Scrub the timeline forward to see how a front moves across your route instead of guessing from a single snapshot.

Official standard briefings, flight plan filing, and NOTAM delivery.

File and get the legal briefing here so there is a record one was obtained. The abbreviated briefing is the update to run the morning of a flight.

General public forecasts, radar, and the forecast discussion for each office.

Read the area forecast discussion when the aviation products disagree with each other. A forecaster explaining their own uncertainty is worth more than another chart.

Model-based visualization of wind, clouds, and precipitation at selectable altitudes.

Not an official source, so never brief from it. Use it to build a mental picture of the air mass before turning to the real products.

Free online sectionals, TACs, low and high enroute charts, and a route planner.

Think of it as the chart table. Plan the route here, then check the same airspace on your sectional to confirm you are reading the symbols correctly and not just trusting the magenta line.

The official source for sectionals, terminal procedures, and the chart cycle dates.

Come here to confirm which chart cycle is current. Everything downstream is a copy of these files, and copies go stale.

Fast, no-frills sectional and terminal chart viewer.

Use it to look at one piece of airspace quickly without loading a full planner.

The dominant electronic flight bag: charts, weather, planning, weight and balance, logbook.

The one most pilots end up flying with. Still hand-compute the cross-country the checkride will ask about, because the examiner wants your reasoning, not the app's answer.

The current, continuously updated text of the Federal Aviation Regulations.

Before citing a reg in an answer, open the actual text here. Study guides paraphrase, and the paraphrase is usually where the trap is.

Free PDFs of the PHAK, Airplane Flying Handbook, Weight and Balance Handbook, and the rest.

The PHAK and the Airplane Flying Handbook are the two to keep open constantly. They are free, and they are what the test questions are written from.

The published list of knowledge, risk management, and skill elements an examiner can test.

This is the blueprint the whole site is organized around. Read your rating's ACS cover to cover early, so nothing on the checkride is a surprise in kind.

The Aeronautical Information Manual and the Pilot/Controller Glossary.

Use the Pilot/Controller Glossary to fix your phraseology. Saying the exact published term on the radio makes the rest of the call easier.

Digital Chart Supplement: airport diagrams, frequencies, runway data, and remarks.

Read the remarks section for any unfamiliar airport before going. That is where the noise abatement procedure and the unmarked obstruction live.

The FAA system for filing certificate and rating applications.

Create the account and get your FTN long before the checkride, because doing it the night before with a CFI on the phone is a bad time.

Where the medical certificate application is filed before the AME visit.

Fill this out carefully and unhurriedly. An answer here that needs walking back later costs weeks.

FAA Safety Team courses, seminars, and the WINGS proficiency program.

The courses are free and the WINGS credit counts toward a flight review, which makes it the cheapest recurrent training available.

Public lookup for airman certificate records.

Use it to confirm a certificate is on file after a checkride, before the plastic shows up.

N-number lookup: registered owner, make and model, airworthiness data.

Check the registration status of any airplane you are about to rent. Airworthiness starts with the paperwork being valid.

Airport data, runway details, FBO listings, and fuel prices.

The go-to for fuel prices and for knowing which FBO to call at an unfamiliar field.

Airport pages with pilot-submitted notes on services, food, and transportation.

The pilot comments tell you things no official source does, like which gate code actually works and whether the courtesy car exists.

Graphical and text listing of active temporary flight restrictions.

Check it the day of, not the day before. TFRs appear on short notice and busting one is a bad afternoon.

The FAA NOTAM search interface.

Read these in full rather than skimming. The closed taxiway is always in the one you would have skipped.

Live and archived air traffic control audio from feeds worldwide.

Listen to your destination's tower before flying in. Hearing the local rhythm makes your first call sound like you have been there.

Live flight tracking and historical track logs.

Useful for seeing the routes traffic actually flies into a field, and for pulling up your own track after a lesson.

The Aviation Safety Reporting System: confidential incident reporting and a searchable report database.

Read the reports for the honesty of them. Pilots describing exactly how a normal flight went wrong is the cheapest experience available.

Searchable NTSB accident and incident investigation records.

Look up accidents in the type you fly. The chain of small decisions is always more instructive than the final cause.

Free safety courses, accident case studies, and quizzes.

The accident case studies are the closest thing to being in the cockpit for a decision that went wrong.

Aviation explainers and quizzes, heavy on diagrams.

When a system or an aerodynamics concept refuses to click, their illustrated version usually gets you there.