Introduction

Dear fellow aviator,

Welcome to this pilot’s resource! I like to call it “the PHAK, but shorter,” because do you ever feel like a book is being verbose for the sake of verbosity? There’s a lot of stuff in the PHAK that could be stated much more succinctly– especially for people trying to study or prepare for the written and oral checkrides. So this is my “sparknotes” version.

I’ve been working on my private pilot’s license, and plan on getting my instrument rating after that. I’m not (at present) planning on aviation as a career, however. So–you can keep that in mind as you use this resource. Also, this resource will probably grow as I continue getting new ratings and studying new topics.

This website is built with JupyterBook and is hosted on GitHub. It’s mostly written in Markdown. If you know code (or markdown, or feel so inclined to learn), I’m happy to review pull requests and merge relevant content.

Happy flying! Sequoia

Contents

PHAK (but shorter)

• 1. Introduction to Flying
• 2. Aeronautical Decision Making
• 3. Aircraft Construction
• 4. Principles of Flight
• 5. Aerodynamics
• 6. Flight Controls
• 7. Aircraft Systems
• 8. Flight Instruments
• 9. Flight Manuals and Other Documents
• 10. Weight and Balance
• 11. Aircraft Performance
• 12. Weather Theory
• 13. Aviation Weather Services
• 14. Airport Operations
• 15. Airspace
• 16. Navigation
• 17. Aeromedical Factors

Private Pilot

• Written Exam
• Oral Exam
• Checkride

Appendices

• Acronyms, Abbreviations, and NOTAM Contractions
• Airport Signs and Markings

Note

I mean no copyright infringement! Since this summarizes the PHAK, available for free online, some sentences are taken directly from the book. As this is not a for-profit project, but an open-source resource, borrowed snippets are used under fair use.

This project is licensed under the GPLv3. That means none of this work may be reproduced in any closed-source work. Learn more here.