THE GENERAL AVIATION PILOT

(a)________________ teaches beginning students to fly. He or she explains principles of flight, aviation weather, aviation navigation, physiology of flight, and rules of flight in ground school classes; demonstrates operation of aircraft and equipment in dual-controlled aeroplanes; observes solo flights, and determines students' readiness to take examinations for licensed ratings.

(b)________________ flies newly designed and experimental aircraft to determine if the aeroplane operates according to design standards and make suggestions for improvements.

(c)_________________ flies new aircraft from the manufacturing plant to dealers’ showrooms and to private customers’ home airports. After delivering new aircraft to customers and dealers, he returns to his home base on a commercial airliner or by other forms of transportation.

(d)________________ flies aircraft owned by business and industrial firms; transporting company executives on cross-country flights to branch plants and business conferences. He is at the call of the company executives so he is subject to irregular hours. If his company owns a fleet of aeroplanes, he may fly on a regular schedule. If he flies aircraft weighing more than 5,700 kilos or jet aircraft, he is usually assisted by a co-pilot. Compared with the airline pilot, his flying assignments are far from routine.

(e)________________ flies fare-paying passengers ‘anywhere-anytime’, but usually for short trips over varying routes in single-engine or light twin-engine aeroplanes. He flies passengers and cargo as service demands, but normally in daylight hours if he pilots a single-engine aeroplane.

(f)_______________ works for a company with a fleet of aircraft, and flies on regular schedules over the same routes, much like a small airline. He usually is required to wear a uniform when on duty.

(g)________________ performs a variety of flying jobs. If he pilots a fixed-wing aeroplane, he may engage in such flying jobs as aerial photography, aerial advertising, sightseeing, geological survey, fish and game census, highway petrol, or checking government airways and navigational aids. If he flies a helicopter, he may fly on a regular schedule carrying workers and supplies to offshore oil rigs, or fly accident victims to a hospital heliport, lift heavy loads to tops of buildings or to remove mountain sites, rescue people stranded by floods, or carry smokejumpers to fight forest fires. Flights are usually of short duration. (h)_________________ flies specially-designed aircraft (including helicopters) to dust or spray herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers on seeds, crops, orchards, forests, fields, and swamps. Most flying is done during the early hours of the morning and again in early evening when the air is still. Take-offs are often made from country roads and open fields. Work tends to be seasonal.