Welcome to the Free Online Private Pilot Ground School

This site is your online version of the private pilot ground school. It is dedicated to making free resources available to you if you are interested in the subject of flying light aircraft as a private pilot.

Read on if you are preparing for the private pilot exam and are looking for the private pilot knowledge test answers, or if you simply want to review a topic from the time of your flight school training and can't find the books right now.

Or indeed read on if you are simply interested in the subject of flying for any reason, such as because your best friend just joined flight school and you need some background preparation to keep asking the right questions.

I've been interested in aviation from when I was a little boy. I started with collecting pictures of aircraft, then I built model airplanes and dreamt of becoming a pilot one day. When I went to college I joined the gliding club to finally take off to the skies. And when I got a job, I started training for my PPL (Private Pilot License) for light powered aircraft. After all these years, I still think that flying is the best hobby in the world.

Now there are a lot of things to say about learning to fly: First thing is of course - it is a lot of fun. If you just started: go on. It is definitely worth it. Second thing is - there is a lot to learn and to remember. Boy and I mean a lot. I remember the day when I got my self study course through the post. It was so much material, that I thought I'll never finish even reading it. Never mind remembering it all. In the end I can say, I actually enjoyed reading those books - some more than others, obviously - but its still a lot of stuff to go through. The trick is to find some kind of systematic approach and concentrate on the important material. Well, I hope this site will provide you with just that.

I figure the internet is a great resource. Thousands of like-minded people who are willing to share their knowledge with you. And why should this information not be free? The principles of flight and aerodynamics have been known for over 100 years. Everyone talks about the weather. Regulations on aviation are not meant to be secret. So why shouldn't everyone who is interested in the subject of flying light powered aircraft be able to get to some decent information easily on the internet? Go on check it out. There are some really great sites out there. Chances are though, that a lot of them will swap their knowledge with you for a pile of cash or are trying to sell you something.

Not with this site though: This is the Free Online Private Pilot Ground School. Everything you find on this site about the private pilot license requirements is completely free and without charge. It covers all the topics from the curriculum of the PPL-A ground school and also goes into the subjects of the practical aspects of flight school (although you will still need to do the flying yourself - I am sure you settle for that).

So lets get started. What do you need to know about aviation to pass the private pilot exam? The answer is given by Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR 14 CFR) Part 61 Section 105 (this is the US regulations of course, but the requirements are similar in other countries). Analysing this text, the private pilot knowledge requirements can be broadly split into the following five areas:

You need to know about:

1) the aircraft - what systems are part of it and how do they function

2) rules of flying, sometimes referred to as airmanship

3) aeronautical meteorology or weather

4) areonautical navigation

5) the aviation regulations

So, these five areas form basically the outline of this site. From this page you can get directly to the five main areas of aviation knowledge. On each of these pages you will find a short overview of the area and links into more detailed discussion of the topics that are part of the areas. At the end of the knowledge area pages you will find a link to the appropriate question banks.

We have teamed up with universal-challenge.com - a quiz site dedicated to educational quizzes, to check your knowledge at regular intervals. They have designed quizzes that are matched to the information offered on the different pages of this site and they feature a database of the FAA exam questions from the Airman Knowledge Test Bank for Private & Recreational Pilots.

So if you are training for the requirements of the private pilot written exam, go ahead and check if you are up to it. (These are the official question banks used for the FAA knowledge tests in the United States. If you are a learner outside the US, the questions might differ or there might even be no official question banks. However, if you can answer these questions, there is an excellent chance that you will be fit to pass the exam questions that are presented to you in your country. You might need to additionally review the specific aviation regulation in your country before the test.)

Well, I hope time will fly in the Free Online Private Pilot Ground School.

All the best.

Harry - your Online Private Pilot Ground School buddy.


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The airplane - what a pilot needs to know
This page gives an overview over the airplane systems and flight principles or airplane aerodynamics as covered in the FAA Principles of Flight question bank.
What a private pilot needs to know about airmanship
This page shows what a private pilot needs to know to operate an aircraft safely. This includes knowledge about aircraft performance in a number of situations and about human performance.
Aviation weather - what the private pilot needs to know
Aviation weather is an important knowledge area for any pilot. The general principles of weather formation as well as the effects that certain weather features have on flight are covered.
Airplane Navigation - what the private pilot needs to know
Airplane navigation methods, such as pilotage, dead reckoning and various airplane navigation systems that the pilot needs to know about and master are covered on this page.
Practical Flight Training
This page gives tips on how to extend your ground school to practical flight training.
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