CFI Care, with Brian Schiff
Get Inspired
CFI Care offers bite-sized nuggets of knowledge to increase aviation safety. Aviation educator and NAFI board member Brian Schiff teaches misunderstood topics that pilots need to know in a brief, easy to understand way.
Schiff draws from 20,000 hours of flight time and multiple instructor ratings to share techniques, tips, and advice to help make you a better CFI. His contagious enthusiasm for teaching and sense of humor makes learning fun and impactful.
1-9 of 12 results
-
Taming Left Turning Tendencies Part Four: Gyroscopic Precession – The Final Twist
• April 22, 2026Of all the forces that seem determined to pull your airplane to the left, like a shopping cart with a stubborn wheel, gyroscopic precession is the most misunderstood. It sounds exotic, maybe even mystical, but it’s just Sir Isaac Newton reminding us that he’s still in charge. Your propeller is not just a wind generator… -
Taming Left Turning Tendencies: Part Three, P-Factor
• March 18, 2026P-factor, or asymmetric propeller loading, mainly occurs when the airplane is at large angles of attack. As the propeller disk tilts upward during a climb, the descending blade on the right side takes a larger bite of air than the ascending blade on the left. This causes greater thrust on the right side of the… -
Taming Left Turning Tendencies: Part 2, Slipstream
• February 18, 2026Every pilot has felt that mysterious nudge to the left when power is applied during takeoff. The nose yaws slightly, the runway centerline begins to drift right, and the instructor yells, “Right rudder!” But what exactly is pushing your nose left? Meet the mischievous culprit: the spiraling slipstream. When the propeller spins, it doesn’t simply push… -
Taming Left Turning Tendencies: Part One, Torque
• January 21, 2026Pilots notice early in their training that single‑engine, propeller‑driven airplanes seem to“want” to turn left, especially during takeoff and climb. This isn’t sloppy flying or bad trimwork — it is physics at work. Four primary forces gang up on the airplane to createthese left‑turning tendencies: torque, slipstream, P‑factor, and gyroscopic precession. Inthis and the next… -
Two Speeds: Slow or Screw-Up
• December 17, 2025There are only two speeds in flying: 1) slow and methodical, or 2) screw‑up. Aviation does not reward rushing. Checklists, briefings, and flows are really just formal ways of saying, “Take your time, your brain needs it.” When a pilot chooses the slower tempo, the mind has room to notice the quiet little gremlins that… -
Wings on a Pilot
• November 19, 2025The wings bolted to an airplane are steady, obedient servants of physics. They lift when commanded and yield only to the laws governed by their design. They neither dream nor decide; they simply perform. Yet, working together with those aerodynamic wings is another kind — the ones worn over the heart, crafted from wisdom and… -
The Almighty Angle of Attack
• October 15, 2025Teaching the theory of lift can overwhelm students and stump even seasoned instructors. The challenge comes from the fact that the science behind lift can quickly get lost in a quagmire of equations. The key to making it teachable is to strip away the technical weeds and focus on what matters in the cockpit. I… -
Howzit Look?
• September 17, 2025Aviation is a cozy universe — half family reunion, half soap opera — so a twist of fate landed me in the captain’s seat, sharing the cockpit with a former student of mine. The man had traveled the full hero’s journey since we last tangled with traffic patterns: he had battled the sound barrier in… -
Know Where to Put the Airplane
• August 20, 2025One mantra I routinely use while teaching is: know where to put the airplane to get what you want out of it. If the goal is to maintain heading, don’t bank. If the goal is to maintain altitude, hold the pitch attitude that results in level flight for the conditions. For the airplane to behave…