The FAA library, all free

Current: FAA-H-8083-25C · October 2025

The core ground-school textbook: aerodynamics, systems, instruments, weather theory, airspace, performance, navigation, aeromedical factors and decision-making.

Best for: Understanding the why behind almost every private pilot ground topic.

• Read the chapter that matches your next lesson before you go.
• Use the glossary and index when a term in another document is new to you.
• Check for addenda on the handbooks page; the FAA posts updates there.

Current: FAA-H-8083-3C · October 2025

How to fly every maneuver: takeoffs and landings, slow flight and stalls, ground reference, emergencies, night, and transitions to complex airplanes.

Best for: Preparing for a flight lesson: what the maneuver is, how it's flown and the common errors.

• Read the maneuver before the lesson, then again after it.
• Pair it with the ACS task for the standards you'll be held to.
• Use the common-errors lists to check yourself.

Current: FAA-H-8083-2A · 2022

Practical tools for decisions: identifying hazards, assessing and mitigating risk, personal minimums, single-pilot resource management.

Best for: Building personal minimums and a repeatable way to make go/no-go decisions.

• Use its personal minimums worksheet to write your own.
• Read the scenarios and ask what you'd have done.
• Revisit it whenever your experience changes.

Current: 04/02/2026

Weather theory and every aviation weather product, in one place. It replaced the old AC 00-6 and AC 00-45.

Best for: Learning what each product (METAR, TAF, GFA, AIRMET, SIGMET) tells you and its limits.

• Keep the product-decoding chapters open while you read real reports.
• Read the hazards chapters (thunderstorms, icing, turbulence) before the seasons that bring them.
• Check its date on the handbooks page; it's updated as products change.

Current: FAA-H-8083-1B · October 2025

Weight and balance from first principles, with worked examples.

Best for: Getting comfortable with moments, CG and shifting weight before you do it for real.

• Work the examples by hand once.
• Then do your own airplane's loading with its POH data.

Current: 2012

Attitude instrument flying, the instruments themselves, navigation systems and IFR fundamentals.

Best for: The instrument rating, and private pilots' basic attitude instrument skills.

• Read the scan and attitude-flying chapters before your hood work.
• Use the systems chapters to understand instrument failures.

Current: Sept. 2017

How departures, arrivals, approaches and holds are built and flown in the real system.

Best for: The instrument rating: the core reading for procedures and approaches.

• Read the approach chapter with a real approach chart in front of you.
• Use it to understand why procedures are designed the way they are.

Current: 2020

How people learn and how to teach, including the levels of learning: rote, understanding, application, correlation.

Best for: Future instructors, and anyone curious why good training builds from recall to real-world application.

• Read the learning-process chapters to understand how your own training is structured.

The Federal Aviation Regulations, always the current text, free from the government.

Best for: Checking exactly what a rule says, and what changed. Printed FAR/AIM books go out of date.

• Bookmark Part 61 (certification) and Part 91 (operating rules).
• Read the whole section, not just the paragraph you remember; the exceptions matter.
• Use the 'timeline' view to see recent changes.

Current: Effective: 7/9/2026 Change: Change 3

The official guide to flight information and ATC procedures: airspace, radio work, airport operations, weather services, emergencies and medical facts.

Best for: How to actually operate in the system, beyond what the regulations say.

• Read chapter 4 (ATC) before you fly into towered airports.
• Read chapter 8 (medical facts) before your first long or high flight.
• It changes twice a year; check the effective date and the change summary.

Current: FAA-S-ACS-6C

Every task on the private pilot checkride: what you must know, the risks you must manage, and the skills and tolerances you must show.

Best for: Your study checklist. If it's in the ACS, it can be on the checkride.

• Go task by task and check off each knowledge, risk and skill element.
• Read the introduction: it explains how the checkride works.
• Make sure you have the current edition; check the effective date.

Current: FAA-S-ACS-8C

Every task on the instrument rating checkride.

Best for: Your instrument study checklist.

• Area VI (approaches) and Area III (clearances) are the heart of the oral.

Current: FAA-S-ACS-7B

Every task on the commercial pilot checkride.

Best for: Your commercial study checklist.

• Area I task A (privileges and limitations) is where commercial applicants most often get tripped up; know it cold.

Current: FAA-CT-8080-2H

The figures, charts and legends used on the private pilot knowledge test.

Best for: Practicing with the exact sectional excerpts, performance charts and legends you'll see on the test.

• Work performance and chart questions using these figures, not screenshots from apps.
• Learn the legends; they're on the test with you.

Current: FAA-CT-8080-3F

The figures used on the instrument rating knowledge test.

Best for: Practicing approach charts and IFR figures exactly as tested.

• Brief each approach chart in the supplement as if you were flying it.

Current: FAA-CT-8080-1E

The figures used on the commercial pilot knowledge test.

Best for: Practicing complex-airplane performance and chart questions.

• Use it alongside your POH performance section.

Current: AC 61-65K · 2025-11-14

The sample wording for every endorsement, plus guidance on certification requirements.

Best for: Checking that your logbook has the right endorsements before a solo, a cross-country or the checkride.

• Find each endorsement you need in its appendix and compare it to your logbook.
• Bring it to your instructor before the checkride.

Current: AC 61-98E · 2024-10-30

What a flight review should cover and how to stay current and proficient.

Best for: After your checkride: planning flight reviews that actually make you better.

• Use its suggested topics to plan your next flight review with your instructor.

Current: AC 68-1A · 2017-05-03

How BasicMed works: eligibility, the physician exam checklist, the course and the limits.

Best for: Deciding whether BasicMed fits you, and doing it right.

• Read the eligibility section first.
• Take the checklist to your physician.

Current: AC 60-22 · 1991-12-13

The original FAA guidance on decision-making: hazardous attitudes, stress and judgment.

Best for: Going deeper on why good pilots make bad decisions, and how not to.

• Read it alongside the Risk Management Handbook.

Current: AC 61-67C · 2000-09-25

Stall and spin aerodynamics, recognition, and how training should be done.

Best for: Before your stall lessons.

• Read it with the Airplane Flying Handbook's stall chapter.

Current: AC 120-109A · 2015-11-24

The FAA's stall recovery template: reduce the angle of attack first, then wings level, then power.

Best for: Making stall recovery automatic, the same way every time.

• Learn the recovery template word for word.
• It's written for airlines, but the recovery applies to every airplane.

Current: AC 90-48E · 2022-10-20

See-and-avoid, scanning technique, and where midair collisions happen.

Best for: Building a good outside scan.

• Practice its scanning technique on every flight.

Current: AC 90-66C · 2023-06-06

Recommended traffic patterns, radio calls and procedures at airports without a tower.

Best for: Flying safely at non-towered airports, where most training happens.

• Learn the recommended pattern entries and calls.
• Read it before your first solo.

Current: AC 91-73B · 2012-07-30

How to avoid runway incursions and taxi errors when you're the only pilot.

Best for: Taxiing at busy or unfamiliar airports.

• Use its 'heads up, eyes out' practices and brief the taxi route before you move.

Current: AC 91-74B · 2015-10-08

How icing forms, what it does to an airplane, and how to avoid and escape it.

Best for: Every pilot who flies in fall, winter or spring.

• Read the avoidance and escape chapters before cold-weather flying.

Current: AC 91-78A · 2024-02-23

Using tablets and EFB apps in place of paper under Part 91.

Best for: Making sure your EFB setup is current and has a backup.

• Check its data currency and backup recommendations against your own setup.

Current: AC 91-79B · 2023-08-28

Why airplanes run off runways and how landing performance really works.

Best for: Short, wet or unfamiliar runways.

• Use its factors when you plan landing distance margins.

Current: AC 91-92 · 2021-03-15

How to get a complete, legal weather and aeronautical briefing.

Best for: Building your preflight briefing routine.

• Use its checklist of what a briefing should include.

Current: AC 91-63D · 2015-12-09

The types of TFRs and how to find and comply with them.

Best for: Never busting a TFR.

• Learn the TFR types, then check tfr.faa.gov before every flight.

Current: AC 61-134 · 2003-04-01

How pilots fly perfectly good airplanes into terrain, and how to prevent it.

Best for: Night, low-visibility and mountain flying.

• Read the risk factors and plan your altitudes with them in mind.

Current: Effective Date: 9 July 2026

Every symbol on sectionals, terminal area charts, IFR charts and approach plates.

Best for: Reading charts with confidence, not guessing at a symbol.

• Keep it open next to a real sectional the first few times you plan.
• It updates with chart cycles; use the current one.

Every public airport's details: runways, frequencies, services, tower hours, airspace and remarks.

Best for: Planning any flight to an airport you don't know well.

• Look up your destination and alternates, and read the remarks section.
• It updates every 56 days; use the current edition.

The VFR charts, free as digital files from the FAA.

Best for: Planning, and checking your EFB against the official chart.

• Download the current edition for your area; they update every 56 days.

The FAA's official search for Notices to Air Missions: closures, outages and restrictions.

Best for: Checking your departure, route and destination right before you go.

• Search each airport on your route and the area around it.

Every current temporary flight restriction, on a map.

Best for: A last check before every flight.

• Check it right before departure; TFRs can appear the same day.

Free online courses, seminars and the WINGS proficiency program from the FAA Safety Team.

Best for: Keeping learning after the checkride; a WINGS phase can also satisfy a flight review.

• Create a free account and browse courses by topic.
• Pick a course on your weakest area each month.

Free safety courses, accident case studies and videos.

Best for: Learning from real accidents, so you don't repeat them.

• Watch the accident case studies for the kind of flying you do.