The CAA have put together a series of comprehensive, practical advice free guidance publications for General Aviation (GA) Pilots, called Safety Sense leaflets. These make for a very interesting read and often contain lessons learnt from Pilots who have made mistakes or had close calls.

As of writing this, the series of topics covered include:

• Fuel Handling and Storage
• Pilot Health
• Care of Passengers in General Aviation Aircraft
• Winter Flying
• Mountain Flying
• Carbon Monoxide Safety
• The Paramotor Code
• Weight, Balance and Performance
• Strip Flying
• VFR Flight into IMC
• Helicopter Airmanship
• Occurrence Reporting for General Aviation
• Radiotelephony
• Aerobatics
• Engine Icing
• Distraction
• Flight under Visual Flight Rules
• Ditching
• Loss of Control
• VFR Moving Map Devices

There’s a few older ones, including:

• Good Airmanship Guide
• Aerodrome Sense
• Bird Avoidance
• Collision Avoidance
• Wake Vortex
• Balloon Airmanship
• VFR Flight Plans
• Pilots: It’s Your Decision
• Use of GPS

There are also a couple of older, Handling Sense leaflets specific to aircraft type:

• Twin Piston Aeroplanes
• Gyroplane Handling and Performance

Clearly some are more relevant than others (e.g. Aerobatics!), but they all generally make for an interesting read. Whilst unlikely, I’d highly recommend you save these PDFs locally to your Computer, in case they are removed in the future.

Additional useful resources I have found include:

• The Skyway Code
• CAA Clued Up
• CAA Occurrences
• AAIB Monthly Bulletins
• CHIRP Air Transport Safety Reports
• Airprox Reports
• SKYbrary
• RAeS (if you are a member – I was an Associate which costs approx. £130/year) also send a physical copy of their monthly magazine to your door.

There’s clearly a ton of resources out there. I will try and add to them when I find any useful additional resources. (Clearly it’s important to make sure the information is both up-to-date and UK based if flying here in Britain!)