The Advanced Pilot's Flight Manual

Kershner is one of the most accurate authors in aviation. This manual is required study material for my students and chapters 1-3 are to be read before the first commercial rating ground lesson. All but the multiengine portion will be covered before the commercial practical test. For multiengine students, the multiengine portion is reviewed in depth before the first flight lesson.There is math in this book. Although pilots can get away with avoiding math at earlier ratings, the commercial requires some calculations. Refill the cup of coffee and dig in. Your passengers and your airplane will appreciate the greater understanding of things flying that Kershner provides in his "Advanced Pilot's Flight Manual."

"The Advanced Pilot's Flight Manual" examines several topics that would be of interest to budding commercial pilots (and beyond): stability and performance, advanced systems, navigation, and high altitude operations. It's not a book you'd read cover-to-cover, because it's *very* detailed in some of its analyses. It's a good reference and can be used to augment your ground schooling for the commercial pilot written exam.In Private Pilot school, you learned to do a weight and balance, with a vague semblance that being too heavy was "bad." You also learned to stay within the c.g. (center of gravity) envelope. You were told that if you are in turbulence, slow down to "minimum maneuvering speed." What you probably didn't know is why. Kershner spends almost half of the book exploring performance and stability and talks about what might happen to the airplane in certain regions of the performance envelope.For the Cessna 152 and Cessna 172 pilot, there are also sections discussing "advanced systems" such as retractable gear, controllable pitch (aka "constant speed") propeller, turbo charging, and high altitude operations. These are less thorough than the stability and performance section, but are nonetheless a good introduction.The last third of the book is intended to help prepare for the FAA exam. As the book is several years old, the questions (and supplementary material) for the written exam will have changed a bit and should be viewed as "practice questions" with answers.The ten pages devoted to the practical exam are useful. The Gleim book for the Commercial Pilot practical test is probably going to be more helpful.

This manual is outstanding technically. However, I would recommend it be used more as a reference than trying to sit down and read through the entire thing cover-to-cover. A must have for Commercial Pilots and CFIs.

The information provided in this book is complete but it's sometimes hard to understand. Not recomended for anyone not into aviation.