Customer Reviews

Beyond The Checkride: What Your Flight Instructor Never Taught You

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Beyond The Checkride (What your instructor never taught you) Once I began reading. I completed the book the same day. Although I am a new pilot, (250 hrs) I believe any pilot would gain new insights from Howards common sense, tell it like it is approach.

I am a pretty new private pilot and the title grabbed my attention. I read and enjoyed the vast majority of the content and gained valuable insight from a definite pro. Mr. Fried's writing style is very informal (almost too much so) and I finished the book in two days. This book is for anyone who is interested in improving their understanding of important concepts that may have been only briefly touched on during their training.

The concept of a book aimed at private pilots is a good one. As a low-time private I know that there are many golden nuggets of knowledge that experienced pilots have to share that can save me a hard learning experience. With this in mind, I purchased Beyond the Checkride.

I did learn a few things from this book, mainly that Fried disdains the FAA and wants the flying public to share his feelings. The book is filled with stories of the FAA abusing its power.

In addition to its lack of content, this book is poorly written. Fried continually repeats himself and uses unclear phrases. It's amazing that any editor would allow this book to be published.

If you are interested in reading a real aviation book, buy Stick and Rudder. I guarantee you'll learn from Stick and Rudder. The only thing to be learned from Beyond the Checkride is that the very same agency that issued your pilot certificate will soon try to take it back, an idea not helpful to your skills.

If your looking for a book jam packed with practical piloting techniques only don't buy the book. At the same time it mostly sticks to title and subtitle. I would give it three and one half stars if there was that option. The book does contain useful information with a broad range of topics from practical information such as landing technique to reasons to be skeptical of the FAA. I will keep the book around to reread.

A collection of essays and snippets that contain experiences and wisdom not easily found elsewhere. Can be read in any order(chapter). What bothered me was the subtitle - 'What your Flight Instructor never taught you'; so I had to leave it in the car or home. Couldn't bring it into flight school :)

The book has good material, that indeed every pilot should know. The tone is whiny at times which gets annoying. Also the author sometimes complains that most CFI's don't fully explain items, but then doesn't explain them himself. For example why it's bad to load the aircraft outside the CG range... and then the author goes to to say that being out of CG both forward and aft are bad, but he doesn't explain _why_. Bummer, a simple drawing of a plane with the up lift vector, the down CG vector and the tail down vector, and then moving the CG vector forward and aft goes a long way to show _why_ the plane gets uncontrollable in different ways when the CG is beyond forward or aft limits.
Some of the book reads like weekly magazine articles munged together with no flow.
Overall a worthwhile read, but could have used another review and draft cycle.

This book is really nice and is worth the price. Didn't regret i bought this book. Really polished from the cover 'til the last page!

Howard's guide will help prepare a new pilot applicant with some inside information that he/she would otherwise not have available. He provided hundreds, if not thousands of check rides in the Detroit and Pontiac area.

Not a lot of depth or specific vision in the stories. A fun read, but doesn't quite live up to it's controversial name.

The book is well written and filled with useful information. However, it concerns me that Howard felt that CFIs aren't teaching this information. I purchased it before I finished my flight training and felt that it was a valuable asset to my learning experience.