Whether you fly for pleasure, business, or a career in aviation, the Private Pilot certificate with the Instrument Rating is your ticket into the full spectrum of the airspace system--it is the key to maximizing the utility of a general aviation aircraft. This book provides the information you need to learn how to fly under both visual flight rules (VFR) and instrument flight rules (IFR). The most comprehensive pilot textbook available, The Pilot's Manual: Access to Flight provides efficient training methodology that helps you graduate with a truly successful personal transportation solution.

Technically Advanced Aircraft (TAA) demand a level of understanding and functional proficiency as never before. This breakthrough course is simply the most efficient and comprehensive way to prepare for flight in TAA and today's increasingly complex flight environment. In addition, chapter review questions will help prepare you for the FAA Private and Instrument Knowledge Tests.

General aviation has undergone an extraordinary transformation in recent years. EFIS (electronic flight instrument system) or "glass" cockpit-equipped aircraft, once the exclusive realm of airline, corporate, and military pilots, have now proliferated the GA landscape. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, pilots and instructors accustomed to flying aircraft equipped with conventional gauges that hadn't changed much in almost 50 years were now sitting behind sophisticated systems with glowing displays, comparable only to some of the most advanced airliners and corporate jets. These second generation "Technically Advanced Aircraft" (TAA) literally represented the coming of a new age and the promise of nearly unlimited potential. At the same time however, the arrival of these sophisticated aircraft created an unprecedented training and operational challenge never experienced in GA. The Pilot's Manual: Access to Flight has been specifically crafted to meet this challenge, making use of methods that will allow pilots to obtain the maximum safety and utility from their aircraft.

For the first time ever, private pilot and instrument rating curriculums are integrated so pilots flying TAA learn to intrinsically manage the combined skills of aircraft control, task management, systems management, and the complex flight environment of today's busy airspace. This is a very different approach from the practice of traditional maneuver-based flight training used heretofore. With a realization of the inadequacy of maneuver-based training as applied to TAA, The Pilot's Manual: Access to Flight embodies the state-of-the-art industry training standards of scenario-based training (SBT), learner centered grading and involvement, and single pilot resource management (SRM). These are real world skills, taught with a train-like-you-fly, fly-like-you-train philosophy, treating each and every lesson as a real flight. This is where harnessing the power of all available resources and aeronautical decision making (ADM) become second nature. Whereas maneuver-based training focused specifically on simply learning to control the aircraft, this new methodology involves considering an entire flight, and all its component aspects, from beginning to end.

About the Author: The Pilot's Manual Editorial Board at ASA, Inc. consists of David Robson as the chief editor of the entire The Pilot's Manual series, and specifically for The Pilot's Manual: Access to Flight the co-chief editors are David Robson and Paul Craig. Also on the board for the Series are Paul Bertorelli, Richard Coffey, Dr. Dale DeRemer, Sean Elliott, Craig Kilcourse, Jeanne MacPherson, Dennis Newton, Dr. Phil Poynor, Barry Schiff, Warren Smith, Jackie Spanitz, Richard Taylor, Dr. Jacqueline Waide, Dr. Mike Wiggins, Tom Wild. Following are individual biographies for the main editors:

David Robson
David Robson is a career aviator having been nurtured on balsa wood, dope (the legal kind) and tissue paper, and currently holds an Airline Transport Pilot certificate with instructor ratings. He served as a fighter pilot and test pilot for the Royal Australian Air Force, completed a tour in Vietnam as a forward air controller flying the USAF O-2A, and was a member of the Mirage formation aerobatic team, the Deltas. After retiring from the Air Force, he became a civilian instructor and lecturer for the Australian Aviation College, and editor for Aviation Safety Digest, which won the Flight Safety Foundation's international award. He was awarded the Australian Aviation Safety Foundation's Certificate of Air Safety.

Dr. Paul A Craig
Paul A. Craig is a Professor of Aerospace at Middle Tennessee State University. He earned a Doctor of Education degree, holds the Airline Transport Pilot Certificate, and the Gold Seal Flight Instructor Certificate for Instrument, Multiengine, and Seaplane. Craig is the author of numerous books, curriculum and journal articles on flight training and air safety. He is a two-time FAA District Flight Instructor of the Year and frequent speaker at pilot seminars. Craig worked with NASA on research pertaining to flight training in Technically Advanced Aircraft and won the 2005 NASA "Turning Goals into Reality" award. Craig won the 2004 University Aviation Association's Wheatley Award given yearly since the 1960s to the nation's most outstanding aviation educator. Craig is an active FAA Check Instructor, and has worked as a consultant and curriculum for Cirrus Design.