The Student’s Pilot’s Flight Manual: From First Flight to Private Certificiate, Ninth Edition

Review by DAC for The Student’s Pilot’s Flight Manual: From First Flight to Private Certificiate, Ninth Edition
Rating:
Earlier editions of this book had a well deserved reputation for excellence. Kershner is a master of taking the highly technical subject of flying and distilling it into an efficient, enjoyable learning experience.

Imagine my surprise to find the ninth edition rife with errors! Examples:

- erroneous definition of Class A airspace;

- erroneous decoding of wind speed and direction in a sample TAF weather report;

- erroneous Sigmet description;

- Weather Depiction Chart doesn’t match explanations in the text.

These are some of the errors that I found and I’m not yet a pilot. The skills required for actually flying an airplane haven’t changed much since I purchased my much-thumbed 5th edition 20 yrs ago but airspace regulations and weather reporting have changed considerably- probably not a coincidence that the errors I found are in the newer material. A quick calculation of Kershner’s age at the time of the 9th edition publication makes me wonder if he was even involved in creating the updated sections.

All the content of this book is available for free via a few different downloads off the FAA website. Thus the major reason for buying this book is to cut to the chase on the body of knowledge required to earn a private pilot license because the FAA downloads though well written, cover everything from powered parachutes to jumbo jets. At least the first two of the above errors would cause wrong responses on the private pilot written test causing me to question the value of the $40 I spent on this book though I did just notice that Amazon recently cut the price by a third.