Lecture 1: Introduction to Private Pilot Ground School

MIT 16.687 Private Pilot Ground School, IAP 2019
Instructor: Philip Greenspun, Tina Srivastava

This first lecture introduced the background and course objectives of this three-day workshop of ground school for pilots. The main purpose is to help students prepare the FAA Private Pilot Knowledge Test.

License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

[colonyresident]

I’m a B-737 captain, I can see how lucky are those students. They’ve got 2 teachers with doctorate degrees as well as practical experience

[FallLineJP]

“You can learn to fly in 10 hours. The rest of the training is learning to land”

🤣💪

[wadesaleeby]

my love for flying started at 5 when I went up in a helicopter at the fair. My uncle was a pilot and at 8 he would let me taxi the plane on the taxi strip. Once we were airborne he taught me the basics as I got the feel for the plane. I began by holding the plane straight and level and maintaining a course... by sight first then use of the compass. It was magical to take off on a cloudy and raining day and climb through the clouds to the blue sky and sunshine above!

[M.-.D]

Great course. It is nice that the lecturers are people simply passionate about flying.

[osher]

As someone who recently completed me PPL in Canada, I am genuinely surprised how straight forward that frost question was.
Transport Canada in comparison will make the question as hard as possible to comprehend, that simple frost question for example will ask you exactly how much lift you lose and how much drag you gain by by % (30% less lift and 40% more drag), and will make two answers similar enough to cause confusion.

[patrickcunningham]

Thank you Phil and Tina and This series will be a nice review as I studied this type of material last year.

[endarion]

I'm a blind software developer listening to this purely out of curiosity and to absorb the atmosphere. Thought I'd share this because I guess it makes me the most improbable viewer/listener of this course.

[ulicec]

I can't imagine you're providing this course for free. Thank you very much.

[shariyarshajid]

Even I can't ride a bicycle well, here I am learning how to fly a plane

[UrbanePrince]

Dr. Srivastava is an exceptional teacher, instructor and inspirational person. I’m a reasonably smart guy, and I learned a huge amount from her lecture.

I believe that Dr. Tina should become a role model for young Americans. Far too many young girls and boys have no direction. Imagine taking a class to an airfield and having Tina introduce underprivileged children to the marvels of flight. How does a person learn all of this? Through having an enquiring mind. All that needs to happen is to plant the seed into one's mind.

Minorities also require role models.

Remember the motion picture Hidden Figures that covers the lives of 1950’s black female brilliant mathematicians working at NASA. Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughn crunched the numbers prior to the application of supercomputers. During World War 2, the all-black military pilots known as The Tuskegee Airmen flew dangerous missions. They never lost a pilot. There is 1955 movie “The Tuskegee Airmen” that is a must-see.

And finally, as a major role model, is Dr. Ben Carson is recognized as one of the world’s preeminent neurosurgeons. His childhood did have complications. However, by the ninth grade, he was improving in school and the rest is history as he went on to graduate from the University of Michigan Medical School and later Carson was appointed the John’s Hopkins university's Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery.

There of course are other brilliant minorities who have achieves success in academia and architecture.

However, it was Dr. Srivastava’s MIT lecture that captivated me, and due to her being employed in a senior position at Raytheon, one of America's leading R&D and defense contractors, I believe that CRT (Critical Race Theory horror story!!) as being forced upon school students is doing a huge disservice to our country. Throw out the horrible teachers. We need more intelligent caring teachers and professors like Dr. Tina to shape the minds of our kindergarten and grade school students in order for The United States of America to soar to newer heights, and who knows....on a wing or aircraft designed by a young mind who was inspired by Dr. Srivastava. Brava Doctor!

[Shazaantaimoor]

THANK YOU YOUTUBE FOR RECOMMENDING THESE VIDEOS REALLY GREAT EXPERIENCE 📛

[delawarepilot]

Finally a MIT OCW I can fully understand :-)

[elijahflynt]

so proud we still have this so many good pilots come from knowing the mathematics behind what they are doing.

[ahetzel]

Ive always thought planes were really cool but never thought in a million years I could fly them. Went to an air fair a few weeks ago and found out it's actually not that far fetched. I'm waiting for my local airport to post their ground school course dates but a friend told me you posted these online. It's insane how many free resources there are to get started. I'm excited to embark on this journey, I have no idea where it will lead me but worst case scenario, I get my private pilots license and I learn some really cool information!

[Dr_BUNNY_]

AT5 YEARS OF AGE I HAVE A DREAM TO FLY A JET PLANE,
AND WILL ALSO JOIN THE PAKISTAN AIR FORCE BUT BEFORE IT
I WILL SURE MY SELF THAT BEFORE GOING TO PAF I HVE LEARN'T EVERY THING .
SO THANK YOU MIT.

[whitesearchtube]

I get a lot of knowledge from MIT Open Course Ware, thanks, I love all!

[steven]

from a Air Force brat who went to kindergarten in Wellfleet and ended up in A&P school decades later...I found even the boring pace of this all very fascinating. I miss Massachusetts.

[danielnofal]

What an amazing course for pilots. Thanks MIT.

[dheerajAashiqui]

being an iitbombay aerospace student it is very amazing course to learn thanks MIT team

[manusharma]

So do so many other universities. IIT Kanpur even has an airstrip and a hanger in the campus