If you are a Private Pilot beginning instrument training, you may be feeling a little lost in the fog of how to effectively use ForeFlight for your instrument training. What taps bring up the instrument approach chart? How can you use ForeFlight to plan and file an instrument flight plan?

In this seminar, SCFC Chief Pilot Herb Patten will provide guidance for VFR pilots wanting to get the most out of ForeFlight, as they begin their instrument training. Tune in with your iPad at the ready so you can follow along.

Although we have many seminars devoted to ForeFlight use, this should be an interesting and new approach specifically for instrument students. Find out how to use ForeFlight to become cleared to depart and not have to go missed in your training.

Herb Patten is the Chief Pilot at the San Carlos Flight Center, a CFI and an FAA certificated advanced and instrument ground instructor who teaches private pilot ground school at San Carlos Flight Center.  He is a commercial pilot with an instrument rating, has flown over 1,500 hours into at least 120 different California airports.  He is the current chairman of the Upwind Foundation, famous for its Upwind Summer Scholarship Program. In 2015, Herb was named a Master Instructor by the National Association of Flight Instructors.

San Carlos Flight Center (SCFC) is the SF Bay Area’s most dynamic flying club, committed to building general aviation throughh safety, community, and adventure. AOPA has consistently recognized SCFC in their Best Flight School survey, most recently in 2019 as a Distinguished Flight School.

SCFC is committed to promoting safety in general aviation through our regular safety seminars and guest speaker programs. Space is often limited so it is important to sign up early. SCFC members may choose to watch the seminar live over the web at home, or recorded at a later date. Click here or contact a SCFC member service rep at (650) 946-1700 for more information about online access.

San Carlos Flight Center invites CFI Kyle Smathers and student pilot Macario Namie to discuss their recent flight training adventure to Palomar, an airport closely located to San Diego. In this seminar, they will cover the various weather conditions encountered during their flight, operations in LAX class B airspace, and how they used the flight to meet the training requirement for a long cross-country flight. Long flights require planning, but often things don’t go to plan. For trips to coastal cities, you’ll need to factor in the possibility of coastal fog affecting your planned departure.

Join us for a unique opportunity to hear from both sides of the cockpit as the trip unfolds into a learning experience for all.

Macario Namie is a recently certificated private pilot. After he obtains his certificate he plans to make frequent trips to the San Diego/SoCal area to visit family and friends; he thought bringing his CFI along while he was still a student was a great way to become acquainted with the complex area.

Most pilots have an operational knowledge of the most common runway signs and markings, but if you travel to a larger airport, are you knowledgeable about some of the less common signs and markings? If it has been awhile since you sat through ground school, you may want to join us for a refresher on airport signs and markings. In this safety seminar, we will review the common markings and signs as well as delve into other less common but still important signs and markings.

This safety seminar is open to current and aspiring Private Pilots, and will be of particular interest to student pilots and those who are preparing for a flight review.

San Carlos Flight Center (SCFC) is the SF Bay Area’s most dynamic flying club, committed to building general aviation through safety, community, and adventure. AOPA has consistently recognized SCFC in their Best Flight School survey, most recently in 2019 as a Distinguished Flight School.

SCFC is committed to promoting safety in general aviation through our regular safety seminars and guest speaker programs. Space is often limited so it is important to sign up early. SCFC members may choose to watch the seminar live over the web at home, or recorded at a later date. Click here or contact a SCFC member service rep at (650) 946-1700 for more information about online access.

San Carlos Flight Center invites Chief Pilot Herb Patten to discuss operations at unpaved airports. Sure you were taught soft field takeoff and landing during your private pilot training, but how does that compare to operating on a real soft field like a grass runway. Learn effective techniques for approaching an unpaved runway including what to expect on landing, rollout and taxing along with what hazards exist on unpaved runways. We will also discuss the details of airports with unpaved runways that are in close proximity to San Carlos.

If you are ever interested in what it takes to safely operate at unpaved airports, join us for this seminar.

Herb Patten is the Chief Pilot at the San Carlos Flight Center, a CFI and an FAA certificated advanced and instrument ground instructor who teaches private pilot ground school at San Carlos Flight Center.  He is a commercial pilot with an instrument rating, has flown over 2,000 hours into at least 130 different California airports.  He is the current Executive Director of the Upwind Foundation, famous for its Upwind Summer Scholarship Program. In 2015, Herb was named a Master Instructor by the National Association of Flight Instructors.

San Carlos Flight Center (SCFC) is the SF Bay Area’s most dynamic flying club, committed to building general aviation through safety, community, and adventure. AOPA has consistently recognized SCFC in their Best Flight School survey, most recently in 2019 as a Distinguished Flight School.

SCFC is committed to promoting safety in general aviation through our regular safety seminars and guest speaker programs. Space is often limited so it is important to sign up early. SCFC members may choose to watch the seminar live over the web at home, or recorded at a later date. Click here or contact a SCFC member service rep at (650) 946-1700 for more information about online access.

San Carlos Flight Center invites experienced pilot Kyle Harmon, a new Cirrus Vision Jet owner and type-rating holder to describe the process he took to become certified to fly a this exciting new aircraft. In this seminar he will discuss the two week process he spent at Cirrus Vision Center in Knoxville, TN and the preparation needed to pass his SF50 type rating checkride to ATP standards. Then he will talk about the series of long cross-country flight he took to build time and competency in the aircraft and to relocated the aircraft back to its new home.

Join us to learn about the operations of the first single engine light jet of its kind and the undertaking needed to fly it both locally, and transcontinentally. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity.

Kyle Harmon a commercially-rated pilot with a newly minted SF50 type rating, whom works in the tech industry and has been flying in the Bay Area since 2009. Prior to purchasing his new Vision Jet he primarily flew a Cessna P210. He is excited to share his aeronautical experiences as an owner of this one of a kind jet. 

In this seminar, Nick Williams, aircraft owner and commercial pilot along with Alessandro Franco, owner of the San Carlos Flight Center, will share the advantages of buying your own airplane. They will discuss choosing the right airplane, how to navigate the purchase process, and what to consider when inspecting a potential airplane. The challenge of owning an airplane doesn’t end after the initial purchase. It is important to recognize the cost of required maintenance as well as other future expenses. Nick will also highlight how airplane ownership benefited him as a pilot by providing him an opportunity to have a deeper understanding of your airplane systems and maintenance as well as allowing him to further develop as a pilot.

If you ever considered purchasing your own airplane and want to hear firsthand about airplane ownership and learn from the experiences of others, join us for this unique opportunity to become enlightened about airplane ownership.

Nick Williams is an instrument rated commercial pilot with about 300 hours, half of which are in his Cessna 152, which he has flown from Redding CA to the Mexico border and dozens of airports in between. He’s been a member of SCFC since summer 2018 and is currently studying for the CFI exams. Outside of aviation, he’s a project management professional in the software industry, and lives in Noe Valley with his wife and dogs.

Alessandro Franco is a pilot and the owner of San Carlos Flight Center. He manages the leaseback program and works closely with aircraft owners on a variety of matters, including leaseback contracts, maintenance, and aircraft sales.

San Carlos Flight Center (SCFC) is the SF Bay Area’s most dynamic flying club, committed to building general aviation through safety, community, and adventure. AOPA has consistently recognized SCFC in their Best Flight School survey, most recently in 2019 as a Distinguished Flight School.

SCFC is committed to promoting safety in general aviation through our regular safety seminars and guest speaker programs. Space is often limited so it is important to sign up early. SCFC members may choose to watch the seminar live over the web at home, or recorded at a later date. Click here or contact a SCFC member service rep at (650) 946-1700 for more information about online access.

San Carlos Flight Center invites Instrument rated pilot David Mackler to recount his flight to Southern California and his encounter with an electrical system failure while IFR. David will describe at what point in his planned route that he encountered the failure and then share his decision making process and how he evaluated the risk posed by the electrical failure. David will also lead this as a case-study discussion and invite you to put yourself in his place, what decisions you would have made and when, how you would have responded, and how it might have turned out differently. Based on this experience, David will describe the changes he made to his flight planning process, and lastly will stress the importance of effective communication with ATC about inflight threats, especially while operating in close vicinity of a presidential TFR in which David also experienced that day.

Flying long distance and in new challenging complex areas can be fun, but it is important to recognize how as pilots we need to prepare for all outcomes, and be ready to handle the unexpected. Join us for a first-hand account of a pilot’s viewpoint of a complex situation – and how to make the right decision.

David Mackler is an instrument rated private pilot out of Reid-Hillview and a refugee from the tech industry. He enjoys flying for recreation and occasionally for transportation. Although a late starter to flying, David is working hard to make up for lost time.

San Carlos Flight Center (SCFC) is the SF Bay Area’s most dynamic flying club, committed to building general aviation through safety, community, and adventure. AOPA has consistently recognized SCFC in their Best Flight School survey, most recently in 2019 as a Distinguished Flight School.

SCFC is committed to promoting safety in general aviation through our regular safety seminars and guest speaker programs. Space is often limited so it is important to sign up early. SCFC members may choose to watch the seminar live over the web at home, or recorded at a later date. Click here or contact a SCFC member service rep at (650) 946-1700 for more information about online access.

San Carlos Flight Center invites Assistant Chief Pilot Brian Eliot to discuss what to do when you are flying an RNAV approach, and encounter an RNAV or WAAS failure. These RNAV approaches are easier to fly and more precise than the traditional approaches. With WAAS and GPS services available 99.99% of the time, it is hard to think about what would happen if they were to fail. Sometimes failures do happen, and it is crucial that we know how to handle them.

Join us, as Brian discusses what to do and how to train for these rare occurrences. You will then be prepared to handle this outage like a pro.

Brian Eliot is San Carlos Flight Center’s Assistant Chief Pilot and resident expert for IFR training and Garmin G1000 avionics. He has been flying since 1995 and received all his training in the Bay Area. Brian previously worked as a broadcast engineer, a software developer, and taught computer science at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He regularly presents at San Carlos Flight Center safety seminars and has a reputation for making complex concepts easy to learn and understand.

SCFC is committed to promoting safety in general aviation through our regular safety seminars and guest speaker programs. Space is often limited so it is important to sign up early. SCFC members may choose to watch the seminar live over the web at home, or recorded at a later date. Click here or contact a SCFC member service rep at (650) 946-1700 for more information about online access.

San Carlos Flight Center invites Michel Vidal-Naquet, an FAA Advanced Ground Instructor, to explain common sensory illusions such as the graveyard spin, the graveyard spiral, the leans and much more. During this seminar he will describe how these illusions lead to specific accident trajectories, and discuss how they may be recognized. Learn how to positively control your aircraft during all phases of flight, to prevent from these unexpected illusions from happening.

This exploration will help pilots intimately understand the nature of common illusions experienced during different phases of flight, how these illusions relate to specific accidents, and how they can be recognized and overcomed in the future. With this knowledge, attendees can become safer pilots with a reinforced understanding of the danger of sensory illusions.

Michel Vidal-Naquet is an advanced and instrument ground instructor, and an instrument rated, commercial pilot with over 700 flight hours.  He started flying in 2013 after settling in the Bay area to work as a computer scientist and engineer.  His passion for aviation began during his early childhood when his family first took him on international flights.  He brings a scientific point of view to his flying, and is always learning.

San Carlos Flight Center (SCFC) is the SF Bay Area’s most dynamic flying club, committed to building general aviation through safety, community, and adventure. AOPA has consistently recognized SCFC in their Best Flight School survey, most recently in 2019 as a Distinguished Flight School.

SCFC is committed to promoting safety in general aviation through our regular safety seminars and guest speaker programs. Space is often limited so it is important to sign up early. SCFC members may choose to watch the seminar live over the web at home, or recorded at a later date. Click here or contact a SCFC member service rep at (650) 946-1700 for more information about online access.