PART 61KSNSGROUND SCHOOL
North Aero NORTH AERO

Phase 1 · Module 1-R

Phase 1 Cumulative Review

The pilot's own condition is the first risk on each flight. The most important decisions on a flight come before the engine starts. PAVE names the four sources of risk: the Pilot, the Aircraft, the enVironment, and the External pressures. IMSAFE checks the pilot for illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, and emotion. The Pilot's Handbook says: "Management of external pressure is the single most important key to risk management because it is the one risk factor category that can cause a pilot to ignore all the other risk factors" . A pilot decides personal minimums while calm, and a written set "can also make it easier to explain tough decisions to passengers who depend on the pilot's judgment" .

When a problem occurs in flight, the order is aviate, navigate, communicate. Each hazardous attitude has an antidote. Each bias has a name. The DECIDE model gives a pilot six steps for a decision made while the airplane is still flying. The non-instrument-rated pilot of N36402 flew into forecast instrument conditions. The airplane broke apart in flight .

Part 61, Part 91, and Parts 67 and 68 are law. Each covers one subject:

The AIM and the advisory circulars are guidance. The current text of a rule is on the eCFR. The paper in the flight bag is a copy of that text. The pilot in command "is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft," and in an emergency "may deviate from any rule of this part to the extent required to meet that emergency," with a written report due only "upon the request of the Administrator" .

An accident is death, serious injury, or substantial damage. The NTSB is notified immediately. The report is due within ten days. The wreckage stays where it is until the Board releases it.

The pilot of N5714W held an instrument rating and lost control in cloud . The rules did not cause the accident. He did not follow them.

A student pilot certificate does not expire. A medical certificate expires at the end of the month. It lasts 60 calendar months for a pilot under 40 and 24 calendar months for a pilot 40 or older. BasicMed applies, within its limits, to a pilot who held an FAA medical certificate at any time after July 14, 2006. Section 61.53 prohibits a pilot who knows of a disqualifying condition from flying, with or without a medical certificate.

The pilot carries the certificate, the medical, and a photo identification. A student carries the logbook with its endorsements on a solo cross-country. A flight review is due each 24 calendar months. A checkride or a WINGS phase satisfies the same requirement. To carry a passenger, a pilot needs three takeoffs and landings in the past 90 days, to a full stop at night. Night has three definitions for three purposes.

A private pilot rated for the airplane logs pilot in command time as sole manipulator. A private pilot shares expenses only pro rata with the people aboard, on a flight the pilot would have made anyway. None of these rules measures whether the pilot can fly tonight. The personal minimums check does. The pilot of N81839 lost his vision in cruise. The airplane crashed .

An airplane is airworthy when it conforms to its type certificate and is in a condition for safe operation. The pilot in command decides before each flight. The documents aboard are:

The inspections are:

The pilot learns the equipment lists in 91.205 by their mnemonics: ATOMATOFLAMES by day and FLAPS at night. Section 91.213 gives the flow for inoperative equipment. The airplane does not fly until the pilot completes that flow. The pilot of N53EM made a forced landing in a Beech that had missed ten annual inspections .

The four forces are lift, weight, thrust, and drag. The wing stalls at its critical angle of attack, at any airspeed and in any attitude. Load factor rises with bank angle, to 2 Gs at 60 degrees. Stall speed rises with the square root of load factor . The Warrior's manual gives its stall speeds, its V-speeds, and its spin recovery. The spin recovery is PARE: power idle, ailerons neutral, rudder full opposite, elevator forward.

The pilot recognizes a stall by feel and by the horn, and recovers by reducing the angle of attack first. The region of reversed command begins below the speed for minimum power. The pilot of N444PM tightened a turn to final until the stall speed reached the airspeed, and the airplane spun from pattern altitude .

The Warrior's engine is a Lycoming O-320 turning a fixed-pitch propeller. The fuel system has these parts:

The manual's fuel management list is the school's list:

The pilot runs the manual's starting, ground check, and shutdown procedures from the checklist. The magneto check, the oil pressure rule after start, and the walk-around are the airworthiness checks on the ground. The student pilot of N6571J moved the fuel selector during the descent checklist and left it between the ports. The engine stopped on the approach .

Six instruments read three sources. The pitot-static system feeds the airspeed indicator, the altimeter, and the vertical speed indicator. The vacuum pump spins the attitude indicator and the heading indicator. The electrical system spins the turn coordinator. The pilot sets the altimeter to the local altimeter setting. The altitude terms are indicated, pressure, density, true, and absolute.

The magnetic compass leads and lags in turns and errs in acceleration. The pilot learns its errors as corrections, not as instinct. The airspeed indicator's arcs are the manual's speeds painted on the dial. The pilot of N62WR took off with the pitot cover on and called an emergency landing on runway 2, a runway Conway does not have. The airplane spun into the ground with five instruments working and one not working .

The body's senses report a false attitude in cloud. A pilot keeps the airplane level with three senses: vision, the inner ear, and the seat of the pants. In cloud only the instruments are correct. The named illusions are the leans, the graveyard spiral, and the somatogravic push.

Hypoxia begins to affect a pilot at 5,000 feet at night. The oxygen rule has three altitudes:

Hyperventilation, ear and sinus blocks, motion sickness, and carbon monoxide each have their own symptoms and their own response. The alcohol rule is 8 hours, a blood alcohol of 0.04, and no impairment at all. The AIM adds "at least 12 to 24 hours between 'bottle and throttle'" .

The unusual attitude recoveries are nose-high and nose-low, in order. A VFR pilot in cloud turns around. A pilot in trouble asks for help while help is still possible. The pilot of N7806W had 66 hours and no briefing. He flew into cloud, told the controller he thought he was upside down, and spiraled into the ground .

The electrical system is a 14-volt alternator and a battery. The ammeter is the first check when anything electrical is in doubt. An alternator failure leaves the engine running and stops the radios, the transponder, the lights, and the electric pump. The manual's response has five steps:

A blocked pitot tube makes the airspeed indicator act as an altimeter. Blocked static ports freeze the altimeter and zero the VSI. A vacuum failure tilts the horizon bar slowly. The pilot covers the failed instrument. The Warrior has no airframe ice protection.

Five events each have a procedure:

The ELT stays armed and activates on impact. The owner registers a 406 MHz ELT with NOAA. The alternator belt of N5343C broke at night, the pilot misread the warning light, and the battery drained. He landed gear-up with no electrical power to the panel .

The pilot flies the pattern at 1,000 feet AGL with left turns, unless the airport specifies right turns. The pilot enters on the 45 at pattern altitude and leaves straight out or on the 45. The segmented circle shows the wind and the turns. See and avoid is the duty of each pilot, IFR or VFR.

The right-of-way rules run in this order:

The minimum altitudes are:

The scan is 10 degrees at a time, for a second each. An airplane that does not move in the windshield is on a collision course. Wake turbulence is strongest behind an airplane that is heavy, clean, and slow. The pilot lands beyond its touchdown point and rotates before its rotation point. The pilot has the approach stabilized by 500 feet. Below 300 feet, the pilot goes around if the approach is no longer stabilized.

The Cub and the Warrior at Winter Haven collided head-on on base. One of them had no radio .

Each frequency is published. The self-announce call is who you are calling, who you are, where, and what, with the airport name at both ends. The pilot never says "any traffic in the area, please advise". The first call to a controller is who they are, who you are, where, and what you want. The pilot speaks numbers digit by digit and letters in phonetics.

WILCO, UNABLE, SAY AGAIN, and STAND BY have fixed meanings. STAND BY is not an approval. The pilot reads back runway assignments, hold-short instructions, and line up and wait, with the runway and the call sign. Line up and wait is not a takeoff clearance. A clearance never authorizes a violation. When a clearance requires one, the pilot says UNABLE.

The pilot memorizes the light gun table:

The transponder squawks 1200 with altitude reporting on. The pilot never dials through 7500, 7600, or 7700. MAYDAY three times declares distress. Declaring an emergency requires a report only if the Administrator asks. At Brown Field the controller gave a turn to the wrong Cessna. The jet collided with the Cessna the controller intended to turn .

A red sign with white letters is a mandatory instruction. A black sign with yellow letters shows where you are. A yellow sign with black letters shows a direction. The runway holding position marking is four yellow lines, solid on the holding side. At a towered airport the pilot crosses it only with a clearance for that runway. Runway numbers are the magnetic heading to the nearest ten degrees.

A displaced threshold is arrows leading to a bar. The pilot can taxi and take off before the bar and lands beyond it. Chevrons mark pavement the airplane does not use. A continuous yellow line marks a taxiway. White dashes under the nose mean the airplane is on a runway.

The beacon is white and green for a civil land airport. The light colors are:

Red over white on the VASI is on the glidepath. Two red and two white on the PAPI is on the glidepath. Seven clicks turn the lights on high for fifteen minutes.

Before taxi the pilot reviews:

A pilot who is uncertain stops, not on a runway, and asks. Comair 5191 taxied across the runway 26 hold short line and took off from runway 26 .

Airspace has six classes, A through G with no F. Each point in the sky is in exactly one class. Class A is 18,000 feet to FL 600, IFR only, and not charted. Class B surrounds the busiest airports, charted in solid blue. Class C surrounds a tower with radar, charted in solid magenta. Class D surrounds a tower, charted in dashed blue, and follows the tower's hours.

Salinas is Class D when the tower is open. When the tower is closed, Salinas is Class G at the surface with Class E from 700 feet . Class E is the rest of the controlled airspace. It starts at 700 feet inside the magenta vignette and at 1,200 feet outside it. Dashed magenta brings Class E to the surface to protect an approach. Class G is the remaining airspace, with no clearances.

P, R, W, MOA, A, CFA, and national security areas are the special use airspace names. The pilot looks up an unknown symbol in the legend and never guesses. The Lance and the tour helicopter over the Hudson were both in airspace open to them .

The pilot checks seven things before declaring a silent radio failed:

Most lost radios are a wrong frequency or a wrong switch. With a failed receiver the pilot transmits in the blind and watches for the light. With a failed transmitter the pilot rocks the wings by day and blinks the lights by night. With a failed radio the pilot squawks 7600. A lost radio under VFR is not, by itself, an emergency.

To land at a towered airport the pilot needs basic VFR minimums, the tower in sight, and a clearance to land. The clearance is the steady green light . No green light means go around. The tower's telephone number is in the Chart Supplement. Section 91.185 is the IFR pilot's rule. A VFR pilot stays VFR and lands.

The Cessna at Brainerd landed on top of another Cessna, with its radios on the wrong frequency .

When the engine stops, the first act is airspeed: 85 MPH, trimmed, then 76 MPH once the pilot can reach the field . The restart flow is the manual's seven items. The most common restart is a change to the other tank, given ten seconds. Engines stop for these causes:

Carburetor heat goes full on and stays on through the stumble. With a rough engine at altitude, the order is airspeed, field, checklist. With a rough engine at 1,000 feet in the pattern, the pilot lands. The pilot chooses the field on:

The pilot decides high, holds the choice low, and changes it once at most. The forced-landing pattern passes 1,000 feet abeam the touchdown point. On the roll, an engine failure is an abort at the briefed point. After liftoff, while low, the pilot lands ahead within 30 degrees of the nose. The turn back has a briefed altitude, and below that altitude the pilot lands ahead.

The pilot secures the airplane with fuel, mixture, ignition, and master off, and belts tight. The Cardinal at Lake Placid turned back at 300 feet with a partly running engine and stalled 440 feet short .

Six events trigger a diversion:

An early diversion costs the least. Personal minimums are the trigger points. The pilot chooses the alternate on:

The nearest airport is best only when the emergency requires it. The order is turn, altitude, math, call. The pilot does the math in pieces and looks outside on a schedule. The pilot amends the plan and the clearance by telling ATC. Minimum fuel is an advisory. An emergency, declared with the minutes of fuel remaining, gets priority .

The solo brief names the alternate for each leg before takeoff. External pressure is the main obstacle to a diversion. A pilot who announces the alternate as part of the plan has already made the decision to divert. The Cherokee at Mertzon diverted twice, waited until after dark, and then took off into the weather .

The sixteen accidents

Phase 1 has sixteen Anchor Accidents, one for each Module. In each accident, the Module's Points, applied at one moment, would have ended the flight safely:

In each of the sixteen accidents, the decisive decision came before the emergency. The Block gate before Lesson 12 asks the Points of all sixteen Modules. It weights the Points marked load-bearing in each Module's touch schedule. It asks them the way the Modules did: multiple choice in the Leg checks, written answers and scenarios in the final quiz.

Sources for this module

You are not asked to read these end to end. Have them, and know where in them this module lives. On the checkride you may open the handbook and you may not open this site. Each one links to where you get it. Reading a full chapter is worth it, and it is not required to pass this module.

Your study guide and quiz

The quiz covers each Point of Phase 1. The list for each Module is the reading for the night before:

Study guide — Module 1-R (PDF)

Write the quiz answers in full. You pass the Block gate when you complete the review and the instructor signs the Phase 1 line in the training record.