From The Editor: Sharpen Your Skills

There are many exciting ways to fine-tune your flying skills and learn new techniques while adding a new rating to your pilot certificate. This month, Budd Davisson suggests different ideas for training, from a tailwheel endorsement that will improve your visual acuity and rudder awareness to a glider rating that improves your coordination and helps develop your performance sensitivity. At Jack Brown's in Winter Haven, Fla., you can earn a seaplane rating over a long weekend in a classic J-3 Cub. Even if you don't intend to fly floats often in the future, it's still a great experience. It counts as a BFR and you'll walk away with a better understanding of the nuances of wind that can be applied to your regular flying missions.

Part of staying sharp means retaining a good understanding of the basic concepts we learned during primary training. Also in this issue, Davisson gives a "pop quiz" of 25 questions that we should know how to answer. Take the time to test yourself. Which topics do you consider essential for every pilot to know? Send your input to editor@planeandpilotmag.com.

Contributor John Hayes regularly flies a Citation Mustang on a 912 nm route from Bend, Ore., to Tucson, Ariz., so when he was offered the opportunity to take a demo flight in Cessna's new Citation CJ3+, he opted for the same route. This gave him a way to make a direct comparison while getting a feel for what the transition process would be like for a pilot coming from a smaller jet.

As pilots, having sharp vision is an important part of flying. Air show pilot Patty Wagstaff wore prescription glasses for years---until last month. After more than a year of research on eye surgery, and a growing frustration over using trifocals to see her GPS and outside of the cockpit, she signed up for LASIK with Dr. Bill Lahners. In her Let It Roll column this month, she tells her successful eye surgery story.

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Jessica AmbatsWriter

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