PART 61KSNSGROUND SCHOOL
North Aero NORTH AERO

Phase 4 · Module 4-R

Final Cumulative Review and Mock Oral Bank

The private pilot checkride has two portions, the ground portion and the flight portion. Pilots call the ground portion the oral. The examiner grades both portions against one document, FAA-S-ACS-6C, the Private Pilot for Airplane Category Airman Certification Standards . One examiner runs both portions, from one plan of action.

The applicant must pass the ground portion before flying. The ACS states the order: "The ground portion of the practical test allows the evaluator to determine whether the applicant is sufficiently prepared to advance to the flight portion of the practical test. The applicant must pass the ground portion of the practical test before beginning the flight portion" . An applicant who does not pass the oral does not fly that day.

Passing the oral does not end the questions. The ACS says "The oral questioning will continue throughout the entire practical test" . The examiner can ask a knowledge question at four times:

The ACS directs the examiner to use questions in flight: "As safety of flight conditions permit, the evaluator should use questions during flight to test knowledge and risk management elements not evident in the demonstrated skills" .

The ACS contains Areas of Operation, and each Area of Operation contains Tasks. Each Task carries an Objective, a References line, and three lists of elements :

Each Task also states the conditions and standards for acceptable performance.

An ACS code has four parts, in the order document, Area, Task, element. The ACS gives the worked example: "PA.I.C.K2: PA = Applicable ACS; I = Area of Operation; C = Task; K2 = Task element (in this example, Knowledge 2)" . So PA.I.C.K2 is the Private Pilot Airplane ACS, Area of Operation I, Task C, the second knowledge element.

The ACS holds twelve Areas of Operation, and 14 CFR 61.107(b)(1) lists twelve areas of operation for an airplane single-engine class rating . The two lists are similar and not identical. Section 61.107(b)(1) counts Performance maneuvers and Ground reference maneuvers separately, and the ACS joins them into Area V. The ACS then adds Area X, Multiengine Operations, which 61.107(b) lists under the multiengine class rating instead. The ACS states the relationship as an alignment: "The Areas of Operation in this ACS align with the Areas of Operation found in 14 CFR part 61, section 61.107(b)" .

No rule requires the examiner to ask each knowledge and risk element in a Task. The ACS gives the examiner discretion "to sample as needed to ensure the applicant's mastery of that Task" . The examiner can cover a Task with nine knowledge elements in three questions.

The examiner must cover four things in each Task tested :

The Airman Knowledge Test Report lists ACS codes for the questions the applicant answered wrong . The examiner reads those codes and asks those elements. An applicant who missed four questions knows four of the oral questions before the day starts.

The examiner can satisfy an element that has sub-elements by selecting the parent and one sub-element. The ACS gives the example directly: "an evaluator who chooses PA.I.H.K1 may select a sub-element such as PA.I.H.K1e to satisfy the requirement to select one knowledge element" .

The References line under each Task sets the scope of the questions in that Task. The ACS explains that "The References for each Task indicate the source material for Task elements" and that the applicant "should be prepared for questions on any weather product presented in the references for that Task" . The examiner can ask about any material in the documents a Task lists.

The examiner arrives with a written plan of action. The ACS requires that plan: "The evaluator must develop a plan of action (POA) that includes all required Areas of Operation and Tasks and administer each practical test in English. The POA must include scenario(s) that evaluate as many of the required Areas of Operation and Tasks as possible" . The examiner does not improvise the questions and does not randomize the sequence.

The examiner introduces problems inside the scenario. The ACS continues: "As a scenario unfolds during the test, the evaluator will introduce problems and simulate emergencies that test the applicant's ability" . The examiner can add a diversion, a rough-running engine and a closed destination to the cross-country the applicant planned.

The examiner can combine Tasks and can pause a scenario. The ACS grants both permissions: the examiner "has the discretion to combine Tasks/elements as appropriate to testing scenarios" , and "has the discretion to modify the POA to accommodate unexpected situations as they arise or suspend and later resume a scenario to assess certain Tasks" . The examiner can return at two o'clock to a Task suspended at ten o'clock.

Scenario questions are the FAA's stated preference. The ACS directs examiners "to test the applicant's ability to apply and correlate information and use rote questions only when they are appropriate for the material being tested" . The applicant must apply a fact to the airplane, the weather and the runway of that day, not recite a definition.

The checkride follows the ACS edition and the regulations in force on the day of the test. The ACS states it in one sentence: "The practical test is conducted in accordance with the ACS and FAA regulations that are current as of the date of the test" . Section 61.43(a)(1) names the tasks in "the applicable Airman Certification Standards" . The edition in force during training does not apply to the test.

Before any question, the examiner checks the logbook against the experience requirements. The ACS assigns that check: "The evaluator who conducts the practical test verifies the applicant has met the aeronautical experience requirements specified for a certificate or rating before administering the test" . Section 61.39(a)(3) requires the training accomplished and the aeronautical experience obtained . An applicant one hour short of a requirement does not start the checkride. That result is not a failure, because the applicant was not eligible.

Section 61.43(a) requires four things for a completed checkride :

Sound judgment is one of the four, and it carries no numeric tolerance.

One failed Area of Operation fails the whole checkride. Section 61.43(c) says "If an applicant fails any area of operation, that applicant fails the practical test", and 61.43(d) adds that an applicant is not eligible for the certificate "until all the areas of operation are passed" . There is no averaging across Areas.

The ACS lists five typical grounds for disqualification :

Two of the five concern tolerances. The standard is "consistently exceeding tolerances", not exceeding them once, and "failure to take prompt corrective action", not the excursion itself . An applicant who drifts 120 feet high in a steep turn, states the error, and corrects it meets the standard. An applicant who drifts 120 feet high and holds that altitude does not meet the standard.

Failure to scan before and during a maneuver is a listed ground for disqualification with no other fault attached .

The examiner grades risk management. Failure to exercise risk management is the fifth listed ground . The R elements carry the same weight as the K elements and the S elements.

A checkride ends in one of three documents. The ACS names them: "A practical test has three possible outcomes: (1) Temporary Airman Certificate (satisfactory), (2) Notice of Disapproval of Application (unsatisfactory), or (3) Letter of Discontinuance" . A pass produces a temporary airman certificate on the day of the test, and the permanent certificate arrives later.

The examiner requires the applicant to repeat a Task that is incomplete or whose outcome is uncertain . The ACS then states the limit: "This provision does not mean that instruction, practice, or the repetition of an unsatisfactory Task is permitted during the practical test" . The applicant does not fly a failed Task again for a better result.

After a failure the applicant chooses whether the day continues. The ACS states that "The evaluator or the applicant may end the test if the applicant fails a Task. The evaluator may continue the test only with the consent of the applicant. The applicant receives credit only for those Areas of Operation and the associated Tasks performed satisfactorily" . Section 61.43(e)(1) gives either person the same power to discontinue . Continuing earns credit, and an Area passed today is an Area the applicant does not fly again at the retest.

A Letter of Discontinuance is not a failure. Section 61.43(e)(2) allows a discontinuance for "inclement weather conditions, aircraft airworthiness, or any other safety-of-flight concern" . The examiner returns the paperwork, then writes and signs a letter listing the Areas of Operation completed and the time remaining to finish . The applicant presents that letter when the checkride resumes, and the letter is the only proof of the credit.

Two time limits start when a checkride stops partway, and the two limits differ in length. Section 61.43(f)(1) gives credit for the Areas of Operation passed, but only if the applicant "Passes the remainder of the practical test within the 60-day period after the date the practical test was discontinued" . The credit expires 60 days after the date of the discontinuance.

Section 61.39(g) sets the other limit. All remaining increments "must be completed within 2 calendar months after the month the applicant began the test", and 61.39(h) states the consequence: "the applicant must retake the entire practical test" . A test begun on 3 March must be complete by 31 May.

Both limits run at the same time, and the earlier date governs. An applicant who discontinues on 28 March must pass the remainder by 27 May under 61.43(f)(1). The 61.39(h) deadline is 31 May.

An applicant cannot retake a failed checkride on demand. Section 61.49(a) allows the applicant to reapply only after receiving "The necessary training from an authorized instructor who has determined that the applicant is proficient to pass the test" and "An endorsement from an authorized instructor who gave the applicant the additional training" . The instructor who gives the training signs the endorsement.

The Notice of Disapproval defines the retest. The examiner lists on it "the Area(s) of Operation in which the applicant did not meet the standard, any Area(s) of Operation not tested, and the number of practical test failures" . The ACS adds that the evaluator "should also list the Tasks failed or Tasks not tested within any unsatisfactory or partially completed Area(s) of Operation" . The retest covers what the notice lists.

The applicant brings three items to the retest, under 61.43(f)(2) through (f)(4) :

The word in (f)(2) is "original". A copy does not satisfy the rule.

Section 61.39(a) sets the prerequisites for the checkride, and the applicant brings most of the prerequisites as documents.

The knowledge test result expires. Section 61.39(a)(1)(i) requires the applicant to pass it "Within the 24-calendar-month period preceding the month the applicant completes the practical test" . The 24-month period ends with the month the applicant completes the checkride, not the month the checkride starts.

The applicant presents the test report under 61.39(a)(2) .

The instructor's endorsement certifies three things under 61.39(a)(6) :

The third item is the same set of ACS codes the examiner asks from the test report.

Section 61.39(a)(7) requires a completed and signed application . The rule names no form. The ACS names FAA Form 8710-1, Airman Certificate and/or Rating Application , and North Aero files it through IACRA.

Section 61.39(a)(4) requires the applicant to "Hold at least a third-class medical certificate, if a medical certificate is required" . BasicMed does not substitute for that certificate on an original private pilot checkride. The BasicMed operating rule, 61.113(i), states "A private pilot may act as pilot in command or serve as a required flightcrew member of an aircraft without holding a medical certificate issued under part 67" . An applicant for an original private pilot certificate does not hold a private pilot certificate on the morning of the checkride.

The applicant brings the logbook. Section 61.39(a)(3) requires the training accomplished and the aeronautical experience obtained . The examiner checks the logbook and the endorsements before the questions start .

The applicant carries two more items. Section 61.3(a)(1) requires the pilot certificate in physical possession or readily accessible in the airplane . Section 61.3(a)(2) requires a photo identification, and a state driver's license satisfies that requirement . On checkride day the applicant flies as a student pilot, so the certificate in the pocket is the student pilot certificate.

The airplane carries its own paperwork. Section 91.203(a) requires an appropriate and current airworthiness certificate and an effective registration certificate on board . Section 91.203(b) requires the airworthiness certificate to be displayed "at the cabin or cockpit entrance so that it is legible to passengers or crew" .

The applicant brings the maintenance records to the airport. Proving the airplane airworthy from its own logbooks is a graded element, PA.I.B.K1b, under Area of Operation I Task B . Module 1-4 and Module 3-2 cover what the records mean. The records must be present on checkride day.

An inoperative item does not by itself cancel the checkride. Appendix 3 of the ACS states the test: "If the aircraft has inoperative equipment and can be operated in accordance with 14 CFR part 91, section 91.213, it must be determined if any inoperative instruments or equipment are required to complete the practical test. The inoperative equipment must not interfere with practical test requirements" . Two questions follow. The first question is whether 91.213 permits the flight. The second question is whether the item prevents a required Task.

The airplane itself must qualify under 61.45, and Appendix 3 cites that section . Section 61.45(a)(1) requires an airplane of United States registry, of the category and class applied for . It must carry a standard airworthiness certificate, or a special airworthiness certificate in the limited, primary, or light-sport category . Section 61.45(b)(1) adds further requirements :

Confirm these requirements when you schedule the airplane.

The applicant provides the view limiting device. Appendix 3 says the applicant "is required by 14 CFR part 61, section 61.45(d)(2) to provide an appropriate view limiting device acceptable to the Administrator" . The rule itself requires a device that blocks the applicant's view outside without blocking the examiner's view . Appendix 3 also directs the applicant and the examiner to brief when and how the applicant puts the device on and takes it off .

North Aero teaches the slow start as normal rather than as a warning sign. The first half hour of the oral covers four items before any knowledge question:

The order matches what the ACS assigns the examiner first, which is verifying the aeronautical experience . The half hour is North Aero's own figure and no FAA document states it.

For anything that is not a memory item, the passing answer names the document and then opens it. An applicant who says where the answer lives and then finds it in the correct current document has answered completely. The examiner grades the search itself, because a certificated pilot looks up rules for the rest of a flying life. That answer is North Aero convention, and it matches the ACS treatment of a Task's References line as the scope of the questions .

The FAA Aviation English Language Standard applies before and throughout the checkride. The ACS directs that "Prior to and throughout the evaluation, the evaluator ensures the applicant meets the FAA Aviation English Language Standard (AELS)" . The standard is the ability "to communicate in English in a discernible and understandable manner with air traffic control (ATC), pilots, and others involved in preparing an aircraft for flight and operating an aircraft in flight" . An examiner who doubts the applicant meets the standard before the checkride does not start the checkride . An examiner who raises the same doubt after the start discontinues the checkride and refers the applicant to the Flight Standards Office .

Area of Operation V has two Tasks, and the applicant flies both. Task A is steep turns and Task B is ground reference maneuvers.

Steep turns carry four tolerances. The ACS requires the applicant to "Maintain the entry altitude plus or minus 100 feet, airspeed plus or minus 10 knots, bank plus or minus 5 degrees, and roll out on the entry heading plus or minus 10 degrees" . The bank tolerance is the smallest of the four. The ACS sets the bank itself at "approximately a 45 degree bank" .

The entry speed is the manufacturer's recommended airspeed where one exists. The ACS says "Establish the manufacturer's recommended airspeed; or if one is not available, an airspeed not to exceed the maneuvering speed (VA)" . VA is a maximum in that sentence and not a target.

Task B contains three maneuvers and one set of tolerances. The examiner "selects at least one ground reference maneuver for the applicant to demonstrate", so the applicant prepares all three . The applicant enters each of the three between 600 and 1,000 feet AGL :

The ACS grades all three to altitude plus or minus 100 feet and airspeed plus or minus 10 knots .

Slow flight is flight just above the airspeed that produces a stall warning. The ACS requires the applicant to "Establish and maintain an airspeed at which any further increase in angle of attack, increase in load factor, or reduction in power, would result in a stall warning" and then to fly straight and level, turns, climbs and descents "without a stall warning" .

Slow flight carries four tolerances :

The airspeed tolerance allows nothing below the target speed.

The examiner grades the recovery after the full stall, not at the warning. Task B and Task C carry the same skill element: "Acknowledge cues of the impending stall and then recover promptly after a full stall occurs" . An applicant who recovers at the first stall warning has not performed the Task.

The examiner grades the setup while the applicant induces the stall. Both Tasks require a specified heading plus or minus 10 degrees in straight flight. In turning flight both Tasks require a specified angle of bank "not to exceed 20 degrees, plus or minus 10 degrees" .

A power-on stall requires at least 65 percent power. The ACS requires the applicant to "Set power (as assigned by the evaluator) to no less than 65 percent power" .

Task D, Spin Awareness, requires no spin in flight. It lists three knowledge elements and six risk elements, and its Skills section reads "[Intentionally left blank]" . The Objective names knowledge of the causes, the recovery procedure, and the risks . Module 1-5 teaches the spin aerodynamics and the recovery.

Area of Operation IV Task E is the short-field takeoff and Task F is the short-field approach and landing. The applicant flies both on a private pilot checkride.

The short-field takeoff has two climb speeds. The applicant rotates and lifts off "at the recommended airspeed", accelerates to "the recommended obstacle clearance airspeed or VX, +10/-5 knots", and holds that speed "until the obstacle is cleared or until the airplane is 50 feet above the surface" . The applicant then establishes a pitch attitude for VY and accelerates to "VY +10/-5 knots" . The applicant configures the airplane in accordance with the manufacturer's guidance after verifying a positive rate of climb .

The short-field approach speed is the manufacturer's published airspeed where one exists. The ACS says "Maintain manufacturer's published approach airspeed or in its absence not more than 1.3 VSO, +10/-5 knots with gust factor applied" . Open the manual for the airplane flown on the day. Where it publishes an approach speed, that speed governs and 1.3 VSO does not apply.

The ACS sets a touchdown zone on the runway. It requires the applicant to "Touch down at a proper pitch attitude within 200 feet beyond or on the specified point, threshold markings, or runway numbers, with no side drift, minimum float, and with the airplane's longitudinal axis aligned with and over the runway centerline" . The zone starts at the specified point and extends 200 feet beyond it. A touchdown short of the point does not meet the standard.

PAVE names the four categories of risk a pilot checks before each flight: Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment, and External pressures . IMSAFE checks the pilot against illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, and emotion . Some FAA material uses eating for the E.

External pressures are the influences outside the flight that lead a pilot to complete it . Get-there-itis, a waiting passenger, and spent rental money are the examples, and pilots are least honest about this category. The pilot plans an alternative before takeoff and advises those waiting at the destination . Personal minimums are limits the pilot sets on the ground, in calm conditions, stricter than the regulations . The pilot does not change them in the air.

Five hazardous attitudes lead to accidents, and RAIIM lists them: resignation, anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, and macho . The pilot names the thought, then says its antidote.

The pilot makes the go/no-go decision again after takeoff. In flight it is the continue/divert decision, run against the same four PAVE categories . When a problem occurs, the priority is aviate, navigate, communicate, in that order . Situational awareness is an accurate understanding of what happens now and what happens next, and distraction and fixation are its two main threats .

The pilot in command is directly responsible for, and the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft . In an in-flight emergency requiring immediate action, the PIC can deviate from any rule of Part 91 to the extent required to meet that emergency .

The NTSB accident window runs from the moment a person boards an airplane with the intention of flight until all such persons have disembarked. In that window, the occurrence is an accident when a person suffers death or serious injury, or the airplane receives substantial damage . The operator notifies the nearest NTSB office immediately after an accident, and after each serious incident the rule lists . The written report is NTSB Form 6120.1, due within 10 days of an accident and after 7 days for an overdue aircraft still missing. For an incident, the operator files that report only when the NTSB requests it .

A medical certificate comes in three classes :

A pilot under 40 on the exam date holds third-class privileges through the end of the 60th month after the exam month. A pilot 40 or older on that date holds them through the end of the 24th month . The count runs in calendar months, so a certificate from an exam on September 23 expires on September 30 of the target year. Section 61.53 prohibits flight by a pilot who knows, or has reason to know, of a condition that makes safe operation impossible . A current medical certificate does not remove that prohibition.

BasicMed replaces the medical certificate for a pilot who meets four conditions :

BasicMed limits the airplane to 7 occupants or fewer, 12,500 pounds maximum takeoff weight or less, and 6 passengers or fewer on board .

To exercise the privileges of a pilot certificate, the pilot keeps it in physical possession or readily accessible in the airplane . The pilot presents the certificate, the medical, and a photo identification on request to any of these :

A flight review within the preceding 24 calendar months is required to act as pilot in command . Its minimum is 1 hour of flight training and 1 hour of ground training. To carry other people, the PIC makes three takeoffs and three landings within the preceding 90 days . The PIC flies them as sole manipulator, in the same category, class, and type. Night currency takes three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop, from 1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise . Since December 2024 the rule uses the word persons, and Part 61 defines a passenger to exclude instructors and examiners .

Three rules define night differently:

Logging PIC time and acting as PIC follow different rules. A pilot logs PIC time as sole manipulator of an airplane they are rated for, while another pilot acts as PIC . Rated means the category, class, and type on the certificate .

A private pilot cannot act as PIC for compensation or hire . That pilot cannot pay less than a pro rata share of fuel, oil, airport expenditures, and rental fees. The common purpose test is whether the pilot had a reason of their own to make the flight . A pilot who would not have flown except for the split cost carries passengers for hire. Advertising a flight to the public is holding out, and holding out requires a commercial operation .

ARROW names the documents that belong in the airplane :

A standard airworthiness certificate has no expiration date. It is effective only while the maintenance, preventive maintenance, and alterations are performed under Parts 43 and 91 .

Airworthy means two things at once. The airplane conforms to its type design, and the airplane is in a condition for safe operation . No person can operate a civil aircraft unless it is in an airworthy condition . The pilot in command is responsible for determining whether the airplane is in condition for safe flight. The owner or operator is primarily responsible for maintaining it in an airworthy condition . Two people hold those two duties.

Day VFR requires a fuel gauge for each tank, so one inoperative gauge stops a two-tank airplane until the pilot completes the 91.213 procedure . The same paragraph requires a manifold pressure gauge for each altitude engine and a temperature gauge for each liquid-cooled engine. The Warrior's O-320 is normally aspirated and air cooled, so neither item applies to it. Night VFR adds approved position lights and an approved red or white anticollision light system . It requires one electric landing light only when the airplane is operated for hire .

Before flight with inoperative installed equipment, the pilot follows the 91.213 procedure . A student does not fly the airplane until the school completes that procedure.

An annual inspection within the preceding 12 calendar months is required to operate an airplane . A 100-hour inspection is required only in two cases. The first is carrying a person other than a crewmember for hire. The second is giving flight instruction for hire in an airplane the instructor provides. The airplane can exceed the 100 hours by not more than 10 hours to reach the inspection. The excess counts toward the next 100 hours.

An annual can substitute for a 100-hour. A 100-hour substitutes for an annual only when a person authorized to perform annual inspections does it and the record entry calls it an annual . That person is a mechanic holding an inspection authorization . Both inspections use the same checklist, Appendix D to Part 43 .

The owner must replace ELT batteries after more than 1 cumulative hour of transmitter use, or when 50 percent of their useful life expires . The owner can recharge a rechargeable battery instead. An airplane that is capable of safe flight but does not meet the airworthiness requirements can fly to the shop under a special flight permit . That permit is itself a special airworthiness certificate.

The pilot drains the fuel strainer and each tank sump to find water and sediment, and checks the sample for color, smell, and grade . Water collects at the bottom of the jar in clear bubbles. The pilot drains before the first flight of the day and after each fueling.

Legal and safe are two questions. Equipment can meet each rule and still be wrong for the flight, so the PIC answers both questions yes before flying .

The angle of attack is the acute angle between the wing's chord line and the relative wind, not the angle to the horizon . A wing stalls when it exceeds its critical angle of attack, and only then . The wing reaches that angle at any airspeed, attitude, and weight.

Load factor is lift divided by weight, measured in Gs. A coordinated level turn at 60 degrees of bank loads any airplane to 2 Gs . Stall speed rises with the square root of the load factor, so 2 Gs raises it by a factor of 1.41 . The Warrior's table gives 64.5 mph wings level and 91 mph at 60 degrees of bank, power off and flaps up .

Below the speed for maximum endurance a lower airspeed requires a higher power setting to hold altitude . In that region of reversed command, back pressure increases the rate of descent. Within about one wingspan of the surface, ground effect reduces induced drag . The airplane lifts off at a speed at which it cannot climb, and it floats in the flare.

A ball out of the center means the airplane slips or skids. A stall in uncoordinated flight drops a wing and starts a spin . Four left-turning tendencies act on a single-engine airplane, and right rudder corrects all four :

Stall recovery runs in one order :

The base-to-final cross-control stall follows one sequence. The pilot overshoots final, increases bank, holds back pressure, and adds inside rudder . The inside wing stalls first, and pattern altitude is too low for a recovery.

An accelerated stall is a stall above the normal stall speed caused by load factor, in steep turns and abrupt pull-ups . An elevator trim stall follows go-around power applied with landing trim, and the recovery is forward pressure, then trim, then climb .

A spin is an aggravated stall with autorotation, with one wing more deeply stalled than the other . No stall means no spin, and a spin also requires a yaw . The generic recovery is PARE: power idle, ailerons neutral, rudder full opposite the rotation, elevator briskly forward . The Warrior's manual adds rudder neutral when rotation stops and control wheel as required for level flight . A pilot who stops at full forward control wheel recovers into a split-S. Intentional spins are prohibited in both the normal and utility categories .

Maneuvering speed is the maximum speed for full deflection of a single control, placarded in the Warrior at 124 mph . It falls as weight falls, because a lighter airplane reaches the limit load factor at a lower airspeed. The Warrior's other limit speeds are calibrated miles per hour :

High density altitude reduces engine power, propeller thrust, and lift at the same time . The airplane stalls at the same indicated airspeeds, needs more takeoff distance, and climbs more shallowly.

The ACS requires recovery from each stall task no lower than 1,500 feet above ground level . Most stall and spin accidents begin when a distraction stops the pilot from flying the airplane . On June 28, 2022, the pilot of N444PM turned base early and banked past 60 degrees over the threshold at 73 knots .

The Warrior's pitch control is a stabilator, a horizontal tail that moves as one piece . An antiservo tab on its trailing edge deflects with the stabilator and increases the force required to move it . That tab is also the trim tab.

The Warrior's flaps are manual. A spring-loaded handle between the front seats extends them by cable to 10, 25, or 40 degrees . The flaps have no motor to fail, and retraction is instant.

The engine is a Lycoming O-320-E3D, a four-cylinder, direct-drive, horizontally opposed engine rated at 150 horsepower at 2700 rpm . It displaces 319.8 cubic inches and is air-cooled and carbureted . Two engine-driven magnetos generate current independent of the electrical system, so the engine runs with the master switch off . Two magnetos and two plugs per cylinder give redundancy and better combustion.

The carburetor mixes fuel and air through a venturi, where the pressure and the temperature both fall . That temperature drop forms carburetor ice. Carburetor heat sends unfiltered warm air from the muffler shroud to the carburetor . It reduces power and enriches the mixture while it is on .

Two wing tanks hold 50 gallons, of which 48 are usable, and the 2 remaining gallons are not a reserve . The selector has three positions, LEFT, RIGHT, and OFF, with no BOTH. The handle must seat in a detent. The electric fuel pump is on for each takeoff and landing and when the pilot switches tanks . It is off during cruise, so any malfunction of the engine-driven pump is immediately apparent . On May 15, 2024, a student in a Cherokee 180 left the selector between ports, and the engine lost power on the approach .

Oil lubricates, cools, seals the cylinder walls and pistons, and carries away contaminants . The wet-sump O-320 holds 8 quarts, with a published minimum safe quantity of 2 quarts . North Aero requires a higher quantity, because the engine burns oil and a cross-country lasts hours.

Before takeoff the pilot in command briefs each person on how to fasten and unfasten the belt and shoulder harness . Each person keeps them fastened for taxi, takeoff, and landing. The pilot uses a checklist either as a do-verify flow or as a read-do list . Memory alone covers immediate-action items, and the checklist confirms them afterward.

The passenger brief comes before engine start, when the passenger can hear it. It names the sterile-cockpit moments, and the pilot answers no questions during takeoff, landing, or radio work. The manual gives separate starting procedures for a cold, a hot, and a flooded engine . Before the propeller turns, the pilot sets the brakes, checks the area front and rear, and calls CLEAR . The propeller can turn whenever the magnetos are not verified off.

The magneto check runs at 2000 rpm, with a drop no greater than 175 rpm on either magneto . The two must read within 50 rpm of each other, and a drop of zero is also a failure. Shutdown follows the manual: avionics off, mixture to idle cut-off, magnetos off, master off . The control lock, tie-downs, chocks, and pitot cover follow, because a gust can overturn an untied airplane .

Six flight instruments come from three sources. The airspeed indicator, the altimeter, and the vertical speed indicator run on pitot and static pressure . The attitude indicator, the heading indicator, and the turn coordinator run on gyroscopes . The magnetic compass runs on the Earth's magnetic field alone. Only the airspeed indicator uses the pitot tube, and it displays the difference between pitot pressure and static pressure .

Indicated airspeed is the number on the dial. Calibrated airspeed corrects it for installation and instrument error. True airspeed corrects calibrated airspeed for density altitude . The face of the instrument is color coded :

Below 18,000 feet the pilot sets the altimeter to the reported setting of a station along the route and within 100 nautical miles . Standard sea-level pressure is 29.92 inches of mercury. One inch of altimeter setting equals about 1,000 feet of indicated altitude . Flying from high pressure toward low pressure without a reset makes the altimeter read higher than the true altitude. Cold air produces the same error.

Five altitude terms apply to one dial :

The attitude indicator is the only instrument that gives pitch and bank directly . Its gyro holds rigid in space while the case moves around it. The heading indicator drifts from precession, and the pilot realigns it with the magnetic compass at about 15-minute intervals . The pilot makes that realignment in straight and level unaccelerated flight. Standard rate is 3 degrees per second, a full circle in 2 minutes, marked by the turn coordinator's index .

The inclinometer ball shows coordination. Ball toward the inside of the turn is a slip, and ball toward the outside is a skid . The correction is rudder pressure on the side the ball moves toward. A left turn with the ball out to the right is a skid from too much left rudder. A skid at low airspeed on base to final leads to the cross-control stall.

Variation is the angle between true north and magnetic north . Deviation is the compass error from the airplane's own fields, and the card below the compass corrects it.

On easterly and westerly headings, acceleration makes the compass indicate a turn toward north and deceleration a turn toward south . ANDS names that error. The compass lags a turn from a northerly heading and leads a turn from a southerly heading . UNOS names that error: undershoot north and overshoot south. The magnetic compass is correct in straight, level, unaccelerated flight and at no other time.

Cross-checking is the continuous and logical observation of the instruments for attitude and performance information . The attitude indicator is at the center of the scan. The handbook names three errors: fixation on a single instrument, omission of an instrument, and emphasis on one instrument . A pilot acts on no single indication until a second instrument shows the same condition. Attitude and power produce performance, so the pilot sets attitude and power, trims, then checks the performance instruments . On June 18, 2021, the pilot of N62WR took off with the pitot cover on and stalled in a steep turn near the runway .

Spatial disorientation is a false sense of the airplane's position, attitude, or motion, and with no horizon the pilot cannot trust the inner ear . The leans follows a gradual unnoticed bank, because leveling the wings then produces a sensation of bank the other way . In a graveyard spiral the turn sensation fades, and back pressure with the wings still banked tightens the spiral . The pilot levels the wings first. Rapid acceleration stimulates the otolith organs as a backward head tilt does, so the pilot senses a climb and pushes the nose down . A dark featureless area short of the runway makes the airplane appear higher than it is, so the pilot uses the glidepath aids .

Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen in the brain, euphoria comes first, and judgment fails while the pilot feels well . Four forms of hypoxia have four causes :

Symptoms that continue on 100 percent oxygen are hyperventilation, and a pilot in doubt uses oxygen, slows the breathing, and descends . Carbon monoxide reaches the cabin through manifold cracks and the heater, and the colorless gas causes a headache and drowsiness slowly . The pilot turns the heater off and opens the air vents, and gets medical treatment for symptoms that continue after landing.

Three waiting times separate scuba diving from flight :

Section 91.17(a) bars a person from acting as a crewmember in four conditions :

Eight hours is the least the rule allows, and the AIM gives 12 to 24 hours . A hangover impairs a pilot at an alcohol concentration of 0.00. Section 61.53 bars flight as pilot in command on a medication that fails the medical standard, and sedating antihistamines are the common example . The FAA bars flight for 48 hours after a new medication's first dose, and five dosage intervals after a NO GO drug .

An instrument indication outside the basic maneuvers means an unusual attitude, and the pilot confirms the attitude on the cross-check before any recovery . Nose high with the airspeed decreasing, the pilot adds power, lowers the nose, and levels the wings with coordinated aileron and rudder . Nose low with the airspeed increasing, the pilot reduces power, levels the wings, and only then raises the nose . Back pressure with the wings banked tightens the spiral and increases the load factor.

The escape from cloud is trim, fingertip pressure, and a level coordinated 180-degree turn at no more than 10 degrees of bank . The pilot makes that turn while the ground is still visible. Near Micanopy, Florida, the pilot did not make the turn . Doubt about position or weather is already an urgency condition, so the pilot asks for help and declares an emergency when one exists .

The Warrior's ammeter indicates the load on the alternator, and a zero reading in cruise with the radios on means the alternator stopped . A total electrical failure leaves the engine running, because the master switch powers each circuit except the ignition system . These items stop:

The lost-communication procedure applies from that moment. The pilot confirms the zero reading with the landing light, reduces load, checks the breakers, and resets the ALT switch once . A failed reset means minimum load and a landing as soon as practical, sooner at night.

A pitot tube blocked at the opening and the drain traps its pressure, and the airspeed indication then changes with altitude . Blocked static ports freeze the altimeter and zero the vertical speed indicator, and the airspeed reads low above the blockage and high below . Vacuum drives the attitude and heading indicators, and a failing pump tilts the horizon bar slowly while the suction gauge falls . The pilot trusts no instrument until another confirms it, then finds the failed instrument and covers it . The Warrior carries no deicing equipment, so ice means leaving the visible precipitation or moving to air above freezing .

Section 91.211 sets three oxygen altitudes :

Positive control of the airplane has priority over each other task, so pitch, power, and trim come before diagnosis . An emergency descent uses idle power, the manufacturer's configuration, and 30 to 45 degrees of bank to hold positive load and see the ground below . The Warrior's 140 to 176 mph caution range is marked for smooth air, and rough air limits the speed to 124 mph .

In an engine fire the pilot sets four controls :

The flight becomes a forced landing. In cabin smoke the pilot turns the master switch off first, and opens the vents only after using the extinguisher . An open door changes no flight characteristic, and the pilot can make a normal landing with it open .

An armed emergency locator transmitter activates on crash forces and transmits at least 48 hours on 121.5, 243.0, or 406 MHz . A ground test of an analog unit runs in the first 5 minutes after the hour, three sweeps at most . After a hard landing the pilot listens on 121.5. Survival gear matches the terrain and season under the route, with water, clothing, and shelter for 48 to 72 hours . After a forced landing the order is people, then fire risk, then signal, and the occupants stay with the airplane .

At a nontowered airport each pilot of a powered fixed-wing airplane turns left, unless light signals or visual markings show right traffic . The standard entry is a 45-degree leg to a point abeam the midpoint of the landing runway, flown at pattern altitude . The pilot takes off and lands on the operating runway most nearly aligned into the wind, and on the runway the other traffic uses . Before entering, the pilot listens to the automated weather and to the CTAF, which inbound pilots use from 10 miles to landing .

Each person operating an airplane must see and avoid other traffic when weather permits, under instrument or visual flight rules . Same-category airplanes converging at about the same altitude give way to the one on the right, and different categories rank in a fixed order :

Head-on, each pilot alters course to the right, and an overtaking pilot also passes to the right, well clear . An airplane on final or landing has the right-of-way, and the lower of two arriving airplanes has it. Neither one can use that rule to pass in front of the other .

Section 91.119 sets three minimums, and none applies when necessary for takeoff or landing :

Effective scanning uses eye movements of no more than 10 degrees, each area held for 1 second, because the eye detects nothing while it sweeps . Traffic on a collision course holds its bearing in the windshield and does not appear to grow for a long time . The target then grows suddenly and fills the windshield, so the pilot turns away from it.

Wake turbulence is two counter-rotating vortices off a wing making lift, and it is strongest behind a heavy, clean, and slow airplane . The vortices sink several hundred feet per minute , and a light quartering tailwind holds the upwind vortex in the touchdown zone . Landing behind a larger airplane, the pilot stays at or above its final approach path and lands beyond its touchdown point . Departing behind one, the pilot rotates before its rotation point, climbs above its path, and waits at least 2 minutes after its low approach. A tower sequences the airplanes, and no clearance removes the see-and-avoid duty of 91.113(b) from the pilot in command .

A stabilized approach holds a glide path near 3 degrees, on the centerline, within plus 10 and minus 5 knots, in landing configuration . A pilot not stabilized by 500 feet above the airport goes around , and the go-around is a planned, normal maneuver . The pilot goes around at once when an approach becomes unstable below 300 feet AGL, and delay comes from landing expectancy and pride . The pilot changes the crab to a wing-low sideslip before the round out. Opposite rudder holds the centerline, and the upwind main wheel touches first .

A land and hold short clearance requires a stop before a crossing runway or point, and the PIC accepts or declines it . In preflight planning the pilot compares the airplane's landing distance against the published available landing distance . A student pilot does not participate in the program.

A self-announce call names the airport first and last, and includes the call sign, the position with altitude, and the intention . A first call to a controller names the facility, the call sign, the position, the request, and the ATIS letter on arrival .

Four responses have fixed meanings :

A pilot never answers a hold-short instruction with STAND BY. The pilot reads back the runway assignment, any runway entry, any hold short, and any line up and wait . Each readback carries the runway number and the call sign . The pilot taxis onto the runway on a line up and wait instruction, which authorizes no takeoff . After 90 seconds with no takeoff clearance, the pilot asks .

An ATC clearance authorizes no deviation from a rule and no unsafe operation . A pilot who cannot comply says UNABLE and requests an amended clearance. Section 91.3(b) covers deviation in an in-flight emergency .

Section 91.125 gives light gun signals a meaning on the ground and a meaning in flight :

Flashing green in flight is not a landing clearance. The pilot acknowledges with the ailerons or rudder by day and with the landing or navigation lights at night .

The VFR code is 1200 unless ATC assigns another, with altitude reporting enabled . Section 91.215(c) requires the reply on the appropriate or assigned code . Three codes are reserved:

A pilot who loses two-way radio squawks 7600 . Flight following is radar traffic information from approach or center, given as workload permits, and it transfers no see-and-avoid duty .

MAYDAY repeated three times opens a distress transmission, and PAN-PAN opens an urgency transmission . The controller understands plain words as well. Declaring costs nothing, because 91.3(c) requires a written report only when the Administrator asks . Delay is the hazard.

A clearance heard through a blocked transmission is not a clearance, and similar call signs lead to flying another airplane's instruction . At Brown Field the controller named the wrong Cessna, that pilot turned, and five people died .

A red sign with a white inscription is a mandatory instruction sign . The runway holding position sign is the one at each taxiway that meets a runway. A black sign with a yellow inscription gives location. A yellow sign with a black inscription and an arrow gives direction .

The runway holding position marking is four yellow lines, two solid and two dashed . The airplane holds on the solid side, and the dashed side is the runway. At a towered airport the pilot crosses it only with an ATC clearance for that runway . Elsewhere the pilot looks both ways and up final first. White arrows lead to the bar of a displaced threshold, which serves takeoff and taxi, and the airplane touches down beyond the bar .

A beacon flashing white and green marks a lighted land airport, and a military beacon adds a second quick white flash . Runway edge lights are white, with yellow on the last 2,000 feet of an instrument runway, or half its length, whichever is less. The ends emit red inward and green outward .

The VASI shows red over white on the glidepath, white over white high, and red over red low . The PAPI has two or four units in one row, and two white with two red is on the path . More white is high and more red is low.

The pilot keys the microphone on the published frequency to set the lighting intensity :

Each set is within 5 seconds, and the lights stay on for 15 minutes .

Before taxi the pilot reviews the airport diagram and the hot spots, and briefs the route with each hold short line . A hot spot is a charted circled area with a known incursion risk. NOTAMs list closed runways, closed taxiways, obstructions and construction . The diagram shows the airport at the chart date, and the NOTAMs show it today.

At night and in low visibility the pilot taxis slower . Green centerline lights mark the taxiway where installed . A pilot uncertain of position stops clear of any runway, advises ATC, and requests progressive taxi .

The incursion defense is four actions:

Pilots follow the clearance received and not the one expected, and a written clearance supports the readback . The Comair crew briefed runway 22 four times and took off from runway 26 .

United States airspace has six classes, A, B, C, D, E and G, and there is no Class F . Each point in the sky is in exactly one class, and special use airspace lies inside the classes . Controlled airspace is airspace where some or all aircraft can be subject to air traffic control . That word does not mean a VFR pilot needs permission everywhere in it.

Class A runs from 18,000 feet MSL up to and including FL 600, carries instrument flight rules only, and is not specifically charted . Class B surrounds the busiest airports, and its layers increase in radius with altitude . Class C airports have an operational control tower and a radar approach control . Class B appears on the chart as a solid blue line, and Class C as a solid magenta line .

Class D surrounds airports with an operational control tower . It appears on the chart as a blue dashed line, with the ceiling in a dashed blue box . A part-time Class D reverts to a Class E surface area or to Class G when the tower closes . The Chart Supplement states which. Salinas is Class D to, but not including, 2,500 feet MSL within 4.3 miles while the tower operates . The order gives Salinas no Class E surface area, so the closed-tower surface is Class G, with Class E from 700 feet .

Class E is the controlled airspace not classified as A, B, C or D . A magenta vignette marks a 700-foot floor, and Class E otherwise exists at 1,200 feet AGL . Class G extends from the surface to the base of the overlying Class E, and ATC controls no traffic there . A pilot who sees an unknown line, box or color reads the legend .

The AIM names three checks for a silent radio: the volume, the frequency, and a microphone stuck in transmit . The Warrior adds four items:

A pilot whose receiver failed stays clear until the pilot determines the flow of traffic, then transmits type, position, altitude and intention in the blind . A pilot whose transmitter failed monitors the tower and acknowledges by rocking the wings by day or blinking the lights by night . Either pilot squawks 7600 . A lost radio is not by itself an emergency, and the pilot makes that determination . In VFR conditions the pilot stays VFR and lands as soon as practicable .

Section 91.129(d) lets a VFR airplane with a failed radio land at a towered airport on three conditions :

That clearance is the steady green light, and 91.126(d) states the same rule in Class G . The pilot stays outside the surface area, determines the runway in use and the flow, then joins that flow. The pilot watches the tower for light signals on downwind and on final . Flashing red means the airport is unsafe . The pilot goes around with no light on final, because a landing without the green light is a landing without a clearance .

A radio that stops while the panel dims and the ammeter reads zero indicates an electrical failure. The manual directs reduced load, an alternator breaker check, and a switch cycle . With no output the pilot holds minimum load and lands as soon as practical.

Four habits prevent most of these failures:

A pilot who finds the radio inoperative at the ramp telephones the tower for authorization to depart .

The response to an engine failure begins with airspeed. The pilot pitches for best glide, trims for it, and holds that speed . Altitude gives the pilot time and distance. An airspeed above or below the best glide number nullifies the pilot's judgment of gliding distance . The Warrior glides at 85 mph, and the manual gives 76 mph once the pilot can easily reach the field .

Altitude determines how many fields are within reach. A pilot at 6,500 feet chooses from a wide area of ground. At pattern altitude the choice is the airport and the fields beside it. On climb-out at 300 feet the pilot reaches only the ground ahead of the nose . Section 91.119(a) requires an altitude that allows an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface .

The Warrior power loss procedure begins with at least 85 mph, then seven items :

Item seven checks the most common fault, because fuel mismanagement is the most common cause of engine power loss . Fuel starvation is fuel aboard that does not reach the engine, through the wrong tank, a selector between detents, or a failed pump. It is nearly always the pilot's error and nearly always preventable.

Carburetor ice forms in high humidity between roughly 20°F and 70°F outside air temperature, most readily at low power . In a fixed-pitch airplane it shows as a slow decay in rpm and as roughness. The pilot applies full carburetor heat and leaves it on, because the melting ice worsens the roughness before power returns .

A rough engine at 6,500 feet gives the pilot time, and the order is airspeed, then the field, then the checklist . At 1,000 feet in the pattern the order changes, because the field is the runway. The manual warns against fuel tank selection at low altitude, because an error there leaves no time for a recovery .

The pilot judges a forced landing field in this order:

The first four items determine the outcome of the landing . A late change of field is a common cause of a stall and spin accident in a survivable forced landing. The handbook permits one change, made early, and only for an obviously better field . The pilot arrives abeam the touchdown point at a planned altitude and flies a normal base and final . The pilot extends the flaps only when the field is assured .

An engine failure on the takeoff roll means an abort, with the throttle closed, the brakes applied, and the airplane stopped straight ahead . Each takeoff includes a briefed point where the airplane must be airborne with the expected performance. A failure just after liftoff means a landing ahead. The pilot lowers the nose at once and makes only a shallow turn to avoid obstructions . Obstacles are acceptable and a stall is not .

The turn back to the runway depends on a briefed altitude and not on instinct . The FAA arithmetic for a failure at 300 feet uses a four second reaction and a 225 degree standard rate turn. The airplane finishes 1,016 feet below the runway . The turn exceeds 180 degrees, because the airplane must realign with the runway. Below the briefed altitude the pilot lands ahead. Steepening the bank to reach the runway raises the stall speed while the airspeed falls .

Once the landing is assured, the pilot secures the airplane :

Positive control of the airplane has priority over each of these items . Under 91.3(b) the pilot in command can deviate from any rule of Part 91 to the extent an in-flight emergency requires . The altitude minimums of 91.119 are Part 91 rules .

A diversion is a landing somewhere other than the planned destination . Six conditions lead to a diversion:

Each mile flown toward deteriorating conditions uses fuel, daylight, and available alternates . The pilot diverts while the airplane still has fuel and daylight for the diversion. Personal minimums are numbers the pilot sets on the ground and applies in the air . When the ceiling, the visibility, the fuel or the daylight reaches its number, the pilot carries out a decision already made.

The pilot considers six factors when choosing the alternate:

The nearest airport is not always the best choice. An airport two minutes closer is the worse choice against a longer runway with fuel, a telephone and weather reporting. The nearest runway is correct only when the emergency requires it .

The diversion begins with a turn and not with a calculation . The pilot flies the airplane to the new heading and sets an altitude for the new course and the terrain. The math comes next, and the radio call after it. Replanning reduces the traffic scan, so the pilot looks outside at intervals and completes the new plan in steps . The order aviate, navigate, communicate does not change.

A pilot who needs a different course requests an amended clearance and tells ATC what the flight requires . Under 91.3 the pilot in command is the final authority. In an emergency that PIC can deviate from any rule to the extent required .

The pilot protects the fuel reserve and does not use it . A diversion that lands with the reserve intact is a correct diversion. A flight that reaches the destination only by using the reserve had no margin left. Minimum fuel is an advisory and not an emergency, reported when the airplane cannot accept any undue delay on arrival . The pilot declares an emergency, with fuel remaining in minutes, when priority handling is needed.

On a solo the student prepares the diversion brief before takeoff. The student names the alternate for each leg and the condition that sends the airplane there . External pressure is the main obstacle to a diversion . The mitigation is to tell the passengers and the people waiting, in advance, that the airplane can land somewhere else .

Section 91.103 requires the pilot in command to become familiar with all available information concerning that flight before the flight begins . For a flight away from the vicinity of an airport, the list includes the fuel requirements . It also includes the alternatives available if the flight cannot be completed . NOTAMs are available information, and a temporary flight restriction is a NOTAM . The pilot checks NOTAMs on each cross-country preflight.

The FAA updates sectional charts each 56 days [cite:cug-sectional- scale-and-cycle]. Planning on an expired chart risks a missed tower, a changed frequency, or a new airspace boundary. The Pilot's Handbook: "Choose the flight route wisely. An engine failure gives the nearby airports supreme importance" . The pilot selects the route from three facts, and not from the shortest straight line:

An electronic flight bag can replace the paper chart for VFR flight when the pilot verifies currency. Advisory Circular 91-78A requires that "the interactive or precomposed information being used for navigation or performance planning is current, up to date, and valid, as verified by the pilot" . The pilot checks the chart edition and the database date on the ground. The same circular names "display and lighting issues, system shutdown, and system failures" as the risks of a tablet [cite:ac-91-78a-efb- failures]. The plan for an EFB failure has three parts:

The cruising altitude must clear the terrain and the obstacles along the whole route. The sectional shows a Maximum Elevation Figure in each quadrant, which is "the highest elevation within a quadrant, including terrain and other vertical obstacles (towers, trees, etc.)" rounded up to the next 100 feet . The MEF includes no clearance buffer for the airplane, and the Chart Users' Guide states that its figures "are not verified by field surveys" . The pilot adds a clearance margin above the MEF. North Aero adds 1,000 feet by day.

Section 91.159 assigns the cruising altitude by direction of flight. More than 3,000 feet above the surface, a magnetic course of 0 through 179 degrees takes an odd thousand plus 500 feet . A magnetic course of 180 through 359 degrees takes an even thousand plus 500 feet . The rule applies below 18,000 feet MSL. The rule states magnetic course, not magnetic heading. A course of 175 degrees with a 20 degree wind correction gives a heading of 195 degrees, and the legal altitudes stay odd plus 500.

Time en route for a leg is the leg distance divided by the groundspeed . A 65 nautical mile leg at 100 knots takes 39 minutes, and the same leg at 80 knots takes 49 minutes. Groundspeed is the true airspeed corrected for wind, so a headwind component lowers it and a tailwind component raises it .

Flight plan times and estimates are in Coordinated Universal Time, which the AIM also calls Zulu . The pilot converts local time once with the zone offset and checks the date. 1800 Pacific daylight time is 0100 UTC the next day.

Leg fuel is the leg time multiplied by the fuel burn rate in the Pilot's Operating Handbook for the chosen power setting [cite:phak- ch16-fuel-planning]. The Warrior's range chart gives "75% POWER 9.2 GPH. 65% POWER 8.0 GPH. 55% POWER 6.7 GPH" [cite:pa28-151-cruise- range]. The total fuel required sums taxi and runup, the climb, each cruise leg, the descent, and the reserve [cite:phak-ch16-fuel- planning]. The usable fuel in the tanks must cover that whole sum. The Warrior holds 50 gallons, and 48 of them are usable . Unusable fuel cannot reliably reach the engine in flight attitudes, so the planning number is the usable number.

Section 91.151 requires enough fuel to reach the first point of intended landing . After the first point of intended landing the airplane must be able to fly 30 minutes by day at normal cruising speed . At night the figure is 45 minutes . These figures are a legal minimum and not a plan. The Risk Management Handbook directs the pilot to set personal minimums "more restrictive than the regulatory requirements" . North Aero plans a one hour reserve by day and by night, fixed before the flight.

A VFR flight plan exists for search and rescue. The plan lists the route of the airplane and the time it is due, and the AIM states that activating it "will ensure that you receive VFR Search and Rescue services" . Filing does not activate the plan.

The pilot opens the plan after departure, because U.S. towers "do not routinely activate VFR flight plans" . The methods are radio, telephone, and the electronic flight bag link to Flight Service. The pilot also closes the plan, because control towers "do not automatically close VFR or DVFR flight plans" . Flight Service starts search and rescue procedures 30 minutes after the ETA on a plan left open .

An intercepted airplane follows the interceptor's visual signals. The AIM's Series 1 signal is a wing rock from a position above and ahead of the intercepted airplane, and it means "You have been intercepted. Follow me" . The intercepted pilot holds a steady course and makes a general call on 121.5 MHz with the identity, position, and nature of the flight . The pilot of a transponder equipped airplane selects code 7700 unless ATC instructs otherwise . The pilot notifies ATC as soon as contact exists. The usual reason a private pilot is intercepted is a TFR the pilot did not check .

The Pilot letter of PAVE covers experience, recency, currency, and physical and emotional condition. The Pilot's Handbook asks "Am I ready for this trip?" . A four hour flight adds three items to that question:

The Aircraft letter asks whether the airplane is equipped and legal for the route . Four items answer it:

The pilot evaluates the enVironment letter leg by leg. The weather at the endpoints is not the weather at the ridge between them. Each leg has its own weather, terrain, airspace, and obstacles [cite:phak- ch2-pave-environment].

The reason a flight must arrive is itself a risk factor. The Pilot's Handbook calls management of external pressure "the single most important key to risk management" [cite:phak-ch2-managing-external- pressures]. The pilot arranges the mitigation before takeoff. The handbook names an extra fuel stop, a backup airline reservation, and notice to the people waiting [cite:phak-ch2-managing-external- pressures].

VFR flight following is a service and not a guarantee. The AIM: "Controllers possess complete discretion for determining whether they are able to provide or continue to provide this service" . Radar and radio coverage have floors, and an airplane low in a valley can be below both. No ATC service relieves a VFR pilot of see and avoid, terrain avoidance, or airspace compliance. Section 91.113(b) assigns that duty to the pilot: "vigilance shall be maintained by each person operating an aircraft so as to see and avoid other aircraft" .

A fuel decision point is a named point on the route with a fuel number attached, computed before flight. At that point the pilot compares the fuel on board against the plan. Below the planned number, the pilot lands and refuels at the airport chosen for that case. The Pilot's Handbook: "You should always plan to be on the surface before any of the following occur: • Your flight time exceeds the amount of flight time you calculated for the consumption of your preflight fuel amount • Your fuel gauge indicates low fuel level" [cite:phak-ch16-fuel- planning]. The pilot makes that decision on the ground and performs it in the air.

Terrain and obstacles that a day pilot avoids by eye are invisible at night . North Aero's margin above the highest MEF on the leg is 2,000 feet at night. A night checkpoint must be lighted. The Airplane Flying Handbook: "Rotating beacons at airports, lighted obstructions, lights of cities or towns, and lights from major highway traffic all provide excellent visual checkpoints" . Section lines, dry creeks, and unlit towers are not night checkpoints. On January 15, 2024, a Cessna 150M ran out of fuel in the pattern at Franklin, Pennsylvania .

Dead reckoning predicts a position and pilotage confirms it. The Pilot's Handbook: "The heading and GS, as calculated, is constantly monitored and corrected by pilotage as observed from checkpoints" . Neither method alone is the plan. With no checkpoints the pilot cannot detect an unforecast wind. With no computed heading the pilot has nothing to test a landmark against.

Section 61.93(e)(1) names charts, pilotage, and dead reckoning with the aid of a magnetic compass . Electronic navigation for a solo cross-country adds to those three methods and does not replace them.

The pilot measures true course with a plotter against a meridian near the midpoint of the leg . Variation is the angle between true north and magnetic north at the airplane's location, and the chart shows it as isogonic lines [cite:phak- ch16-variation]. From true to magnetic the pilot subtracts easterly variation and adds westerly variation . Pilots remember that sign as east is least and west is best.

The conversion from true course to compass heading has three steps :

The wind correction angle turns the nose into the wind and holds the ground track on the course line .

A good checkpoint is unique, is visible from cruise altitude, and sits on or near the course line . A lake among lakes is not unique, and a small circle on the chart "may turn out to be only a half-dozen houses" . A river, highway, or railroad that crosses the course gives a timing check, and the crossing time tests the planned groundspeed [cite:phak- ch16-pilotage]. A line feature parallel to the course confirms the track and bounds the drift. The handbook directs the pilot to "select features that make useful boundaries or brackets on each side of the course" .

True airspeed is calibrated airspeed corrected for density altitude, and the Pilot's Handbook approximation adds "2 percent to the CAS for each 1,000 feet of altitude" . Cruise power selection trades speed against fuel flow and range, and the Pilot's Operating Handbook cruise table gives the choices. The Warrior burns 9.2 gallons an hour at 75 percent power and 6.7 gallons an hour at 55 percent .

The wind side of the flight computer solves the wind correction angle and the groundspeed . Its inputs are the forecast wind, the true airspeed, and the true course [cite:phak- ch16-wind-triangle]. Winds aloft forecasts and written METARs use true north . Winds voiced by a tower, by ATIS, or by an ASOS or AWOS broadcast are magnetic .

Actual groundspeed is the distance between two checkpoints divided by the time between them, so 12 nautical miles in 8 minutes is 90 knots . At a groundspeed slower than planned the pilot recomputes the destination fuel first and the schedule second . The schedule can change and the fuel limit cannot.

Unplanned consumption from a headwind, a rich mixture, or a deviation appears in the checkpoint fuel log. The response is the fuel decision point . A persistent disagreement between the planned heading and the heading that holds the track means the wind is not as forecast. The correction is a revised wind correction angle, not another re-intercept .

A VOR broadcasts 360 radials referenced to magnetic north, and a radial always extends from the station . The pilot identifies the station by its Morse code or its recorded voice identifier before use . A missing identifier means the station is unusable, often because it is out of service for maintenance . With a course set in the OBS, the needle shows displacement from that course . The flag shows whether that course leads to or from the station . Sensing is correct only when the selected course roughly matches the direction of flight, and flying the reciprocal gives reverse sensing .

One VOR gives a line of position. The pilot centers the needle with a FROM indication, and the course window then reads the radial the airplane is on . Radials from two VORs cross at exactly one place, so a two VOR cross-fix gives a position with no visual landmark . VOR reception is line of sight. Reception range at 1,000 feet above ground level is about 40 to 45 miles, and that range grows with altitude [cite:phak- ch16-vor-radials]. Terrain blocks the signal at low altitude.

VOR accuracy checks are an IFR requirement under 91.171 and not a VFR one . The tolerance on a ground check is plus or minus 4 degrees . A VOT check costs nothing. With the CDI centered, the selector reads 0 degrees with a FROM indication or 180 degrees with a TO indication . A receiver that reads 8 degrees off on the VOT reads 8 degrees off on a cross-fix.

DME and GPS distances are slant range, so over a station at 6,076 feet the readout shows about 1.0 nautical mile rather than zero [cite:phak- ch16-dme].

GPS position comes from satellite ranging, and a receiver needs a minimum of four satellites for a three dimensional position . RAIM is the receiver's integrity self check. Without RAIM "the pilot has no assurance of the GPS position integrity" . RAIM detects an integrity anomaly with 5 satellites, or with 4 satellites and barometric aiding. Exclusion of a faulty signal takes 6 satellites, or 5 with barometric aiding .

A RAIM loss or integrity annunciation in flight means the position is unverified. The pilot crosschecks an unverified position against the chart, a VOR, or the checkpoints, or reverts to pilotage and dead reckoning .

No regulation requires a current GPS database for VFR navigation . Stale airspace and frequency data still causes errors, and the handbook records pilots who "ventured into airspace they were trying to avoid by using an outdated database" . The pilot crosschecks an out of date database against the chart, or does not use it for airspace at all.

Handheld and tablet receivers are situational awareness aids rather than primary navigation, and they have "no RAIM alerting capability" . Their failure modes are the battery, the signal through a window antenna, and the heat that shuts a tablet down . GPS interference and test events "have become more common," and they appear as GPS NOTAMs. An unexplained GPS anomaly takes an immediate crosscheck against ground references .

VFR flight following gives traffic advisories and safety alerts, workload permitting . The request goes to approach control or center with the call sign, position, altitude, and destination. Traffic comes as a clock position relative to the airplane's ground track, not its heading . The pilot of an airplane crabbing 30 degrees right for the wind looks for 12 o'clock traffic one hour left of the nose . "Radar service terminated, squawk VFR" ends the service, and the pilot resumes navigation, terrain clearance, and traffic avoidance with no handoff .

Mode A sends the four digit squawk, Mode C adds pressure altitude, and Mode S adds selective interrogation and a data link . Code 1200 is the VFR code . Code 7500 is hijack, 7600 is lost communications, and 7700 is emergency. The pilot does not turn the knobs through those codes . An installed and operable transponder runs with altitude reporting whenever the airplane is airborne in controlled airspace .

Mode C reports pressure altitude from an encoder preset at standard pressure, and the surveillance facility applies the local correction . The pilot never adjusts the transponder for the altimeter setting. ADS-B In is optional and receives TIS-B traffic and FIS-B weather. TIS-B carries only transponder equipped targets inside radar coverage .

The pilot programs the navigator before reaching the runway, because the handbook directs the pilot to enter user-defined waypoints "prior to flight, not on the fly" . A mis-set GPS flight plan takes the airplane to the wrong place. The magenta line to a wrong waypoint looks like the line to a right one. On any navigation signal loss, the pilot says the loss aloud, holds the last crosschecked heading, and rebuilds position from pilotage and dead reckoning .

The lost procedure is the five Cs: climb, communicate, confess, comply, conserve . Climbing increases "radio and navigation reception range and also increases radar coverage," and it widens the view . The pilot rebuilds position from the last known fix. The time flown since that fix, multiplied by the groundspeed, bounds the circle the airplane must be in. Inside that circle the pilot matches large features to the chart, such as a river, a highway, or a town with a water tower . A VOR cross-fix or the GPS nearest page resolves the position with no visual match at all .

Any radar equipped ATC facility can locate the airplane and give vectors . The conditions are a working radio to the controller and a position inside radar coverage . The emergency frequency 121.5 MHz and code 7700 exist for the lost airplane [cite:phak-ch16-lost- procedures]. The AIM states that an airplane is in "at least an urgency condition the moment the pilot becomes doubtful about position" . Doubt about position is the time to ask for help. Three conditions each take an immediate request or a declaration:

The pilot of a lost airplane sets a safe altitude and a cruise power setting first, and looks outside the cockpit. Circling a landmark while reading a chart risks a collision . On March 9, 2021, a Cessna 170A pilot near Poplar Bluff, Missouri, had a dead phone battery and could not power his handheld GPS. He carried no paper chart, landed in a soft field with about ten minutes of fuel, and the airplane nosed over .

Performance numbers come from the performance charts in the Pilot's Operating Handbook. The pilot enters each chart with the weight, wind, temperature, and altitude of the flight, never from memory [cite:phak- ch11-performance-charts]. Between rows the pilot interpolates, and rounds an uncertain input the adverse way [cite:phak- ch11-interpolation]:

The chart's title block is part of the data. The Warrior's takeoff chart states a paved level dry runway, no wind, and a flap setting . Grass, a tailwind, or a different flap setting voids the number.

A test pilot flew the published numbers in a new airplane [cite:phak- ch11-performance-charts]. A worn trainer flown by a private pilot does not match them, so the pilot adds margin [cite:pa28-151-general- performance-note]. North Aero adds 50 percent to computed takeoff and landing distance, which turns a published number into a planning number . The pilot also picks an abort point before takeoff, at a visible spot on the runway [cite:afh- ch6-rejected-takeoff]. If the airplane does not fly there, or does not accelerate on plan, the pilot stops the takeoff.

Pressure altitude is the altimeter reading with 29.92 set, and most charts use it . Density altitude is pressure altitude corrected for nonstandard temperature, and the airplane performs at the density altitude [cite:phak-ch11-density- altitude-performance]. Standard sea-level atmosphere is 15 degrees Celsius and 29.92 inches of mercury [cite:phak-ch11-standard- atmosphere]. Heat, elevation, and humidity each raise density altitude alone, and a hot day at a low field raises it . High density altitude reduces performance in three ways:

Density altitude rises about 120 feet for each degree Celsius above standard . Humidity is the weakest of the three, and no rule of thumb or chart computes its effect . Landing distance also grows, because the same indicated airspeed is a higher groundspeed and a longer rollout . A go-around loses the same climb rate. At 6,000 feet of pressure altitude and 100 degrees Fahrenheit, 500 feet per minute becomes 120 .

A headwind shortens takeoff and landing distance, and a tailwind lengthens it more per knot [cite:phak-ch11-weight-and-wind-on- takeoff]. Only the components count, so the pilot splits the reported wind into headwind and crosswind . The maximum demonstrated crosswind component is a demonstration and not a limitation . Above that component the pilot tests the airplane.

Published short-field and soft-field distances assume the technique in the POH exactly, so an imprecise speed adds distance that no chart shows . Takeoff flaps shorten the ground roll and flatten the climb, and landing flaps steepen the approach and slow the touchdown . Grass, soft, wet, or contaminated surfaces add roll, and the pilot adds margin where the POH gives no factor [cite:phak-ch11-runway- surface-and-slope]. An uphill takeoff and a downhill landing each lengthen the distance required [cite:phak-ch11-runway-surface-and- slope].

Ground effect reduces induced drag within about a wingspan of the surface . An overloaded airplane, or one at high density altitude, can lift off in ground effect and then not climb.

Stall speed rises with the square root of load factor, so 2 g at 60 degrees of bank raises it about 41 percent [cite:phak-ch5-load-factor- and-stall-speed]. Maneuvering speed falls with weight, so a light airplane has a lower Va . Stall speed rises with weight, and each table states the weight it applies to .

Weight times arm equals moment, and CG equals total moment divided by total weight . The datum is the manufacturer's reference line, and each arm measures from it . Basic empty weight includes unusable fuel and, in modern manuals, full oil, so the pilot confirms the airplane's own figure . The legal source is the current weighing record and equipment list, not the sample problem . Useful load is maximum weight minus basic empty weight . Avgas weighs 6 pounds per US gallon, and oil 7.5 .

The plotted point must sit inside the loading envelope chart . Fuel burn moves weight and CG in flight, so the pilot checks takeoff and landing both [cite:phak-ch10-cg- effects]. Weight moved times distance moved equals total weight times CG change . Overweight operation lengthens the takeoff, flattens the climb, raises the stall speed, and voids the charts . Baggage placards are structural limits, because the floor and tiedowns carry only the placarded weight . The Warrior holds utility category approval only inside a smaller envelope , where steep turns are legal and spins are prohibited .

A forward CG is more stable and nose-heavy, with a higher stall speed, more flare force, and a lower cruise speed [cite:phak-ch10-cg- effects]. An aft CG is less stable and slightly faster, with degraded stall and spin recovery . A CG behind the aft limit can make spin recovery impossible, and it is the deadliest weight-and-balance error .

Section 91.9 bars operating an airplane without complying with the limitations in the approved flight manual, markings, and placards . The Warrior's limits in calibrated miles per hour are :

At Va one full deflection of one control, one time, stalls the airplane before it breaks . Va covers no repeated input and no combined input. Limit load factors with flaps up are 3.8 and minus 1.52 g normal, and 4.4 and minus 1.76 g utility .

Vy gives the most altitude per minute, and Vx the most per distance, so obstacle planning uses Vx . Climb rate falls as the airplane climbs. The service ceiling is the altitude where the best rate of climb is 100 feet per minute [cite:phak- ch11-service-ceiling]. Maximum range and maximum endurance occur at different power settings . The column over a 50-foot obstacle includes the air segment, and the ground-roll column alone understates the runway required [cite:phak- ch11-takeoff-charts].

The pilot selects the runway and the takeoff path before taxi, from computed numbers . The selection weighs:

The go-around path and its obstacles are part of that selection, because a go-around at high density altitude climbs poorly . On August 12, 2021, a Cherokee 140 at Panguitch, Utah, could not climb at 9,000 feet of density altitude . The pilot computed the weight and never opened the takeoff chart .

Section 91.103 makes weather reports and forecasts required preflight information for a flight away from the airport's vicinity . A pilot who reads the METAR and skips the TAF has read the reports and not the forecasts. The two official sources are aviationweather.gov for products, and Flight Service for briefings at 1800wxbrief.com and 1-800-WX-BRIEF [cite:aim-7-1-2-faa-weather- services]. A self-briefing from official sources meets 91.103, and so does a call to a briefer .

Electronic flight bag weather is aggregated National Weather Service and FAA data. When the application's summary and the raw product disagree, the product is the authority . A pilot can update weather in flight by radio and by FIS-B, and neither replaces the preflight briefing . Flight Watch on 122.0 and HIWAS no longer exist, and the current AIM mentions neither .

A standard briefing is the full briefing for any flight, and the pilot requests it closest to departure . An abbreviated briefing updates an earlier briefing or answers specific items, and never replaces a standard briefing . An outlook briefing applies six or more hours before departure, for planning purposes only, and is never a launch briefing . The briefing sequence has three steps :

A briefer, or the self-brief form, takes five items about the flight :

A briefing is weather plus aeronautical information, so NOTAMs and TFRs are part of it . A clear day is a no-go on a runway closure or a TFR.

"VFR flight not recommended" is advisory and not an order, and the pilot makes the decision .

The self-brief runs in a fixed order [cite:ac-91-92-briefing- elements]:

A METAR is a routine surface observation, typically hourly, and it reports past conditions and not a forecast [cite:awh-ch24-metar-and- speci]. A SPECI is unscheduled, so a SPECI alone shows that a condition changed fast . Wind codes direction in tens of degrees true and speed in knots, with G for gusts, VRB variable, and 00000KT calm . Visibility is in statute miles, including fractions such as 1 1/2SM . Present weather carries an intensity prefix, minus light, none moderate, and plus heavy [cite:awh- ch24-metar-present-weather]. The letter pairs include RA, SN, BR, FG, HZ, and TS.

Sky condition comes in eighths, with heights in hundreds of feet above the ground :

A ceiling is the lowest broken or overcast layer, or the vertical visibility, and scattered is not a ceiling [cite:awh-ch24-metar-sky- condition]. VV003 is an indefinite ceiling of 300 feet, with no layer base to fly under.

Temperature and dewpoint report in whole degrees Celsius, and M marks a value below zero . A closing spread across successive METARs warns of fog, and AC 91-92 cautions at 3 degrees or less . The altimeter group codes the setting, so A2992 is 29.92, and the set altimeter reads field elevation [cite:awh-ch24-metar-temperature-and- altimeter]. AO2 marks an automated station with a precipitation discriminator, which can report less than a human observer reports . The briefing covers stations along the whole route, not the endpoints alone [cite:ac-91-92-briefing- elements].

A TAF forecasts conditions within 5 statute miles of the airport, and covers no en route segment . Scheduled TAFs issue four times a day and are valid 24 hours, or 30 at some airports . The header carries the issuance time and a validity window in day and hour Zulu . FM marks a rapid change to a new prevailing condition at that time [cite:awh- ch27-taf-change-groups]. TEMPO marks temporary fluctuations, each an hour or less and together under half the period [cite:awh-ch27-taf- change-groups].

PROB30 marks a 30 percent chance of the bracketed conditions, and the pilot plans for them . An amended TAF supersedes and cancels the previous one the moment it issues . CB is the only cloud type a TAF names, and it forecasts thunderstorms in that window .

The flight categories summarize ceiling and visibility :

MVFR is not an automatic go, because legal VFR conditions can be below a written personal minimum .

The adverse-conditions section is the no-go trigger list. Known or forecast icing, turbulence aloft, or convection is a no-go in a non- deiced trainer, before the pilot decodes any product . Winds aloft enter the nav log, and a large difference from the surface wind warns of shear in climb and descent .

Personal weather minimums are written numbers for ceiling, visibility, wind, and crosswind, set before flight above the legal minimums . The comparison is mechanical, and the pilot does not change the number on the ramp. The pilot sets the continue-or-divert point before launch, as a place and the condition that triggers the divert .

Weather worse than briefed and below personal minimums makes a diversion prudent . The recognition has three parts:

Each product has an age, so the pilot reads issue and valid times with the contents . The go/no-go is a conclusion from brief, compare, decide, and document, and never a feeling about the sky .

About two-thirds of general aviation accidents in reduced-visibility weather are fatal . On March 25, 2023, a private pilot who took no briefing flew into cloud near Johns Island, South Carolina, and died .

Class B appears on the sectional as solid blue rings [cite:cug- airspace-b-c-d]. Each shelf label gives the ceiling over the floor in hundreds of feet MSL, so 100 over 40 runs from 4,000 to 10,000 feet. Class C appears as solid magenta rings, with a 5 NM core and a 10 NM shelf . That shelf runs from about 1,200 to 4,000 feet above the airport.

Class D appears as a dashed blue circle with a boxed ceiling figure in hundreds of feet MSL . That airspace usually extends to 2,500 feet above the field . A minus sign before the box means up to but not including that altitude . A blue airport symbol marks an operating control tower, and a magenta symbol marks an airport without one .

Class E to the surface appears as a dashed magenta circle [cite:cug- airspace-e-g]. Inside the magenta vignette Class E begins at 700 feet AGL, and outside it at 1,200 feet AGL . Class G fills the space below that floor, thin at most airports and thicker in the mountain West . Class A begins at 18,000 feet MSL everywhere, takes an IFR clearance and an instrument rating, and allows no VFR flight .

Class G has no ATC communication requirement, and the CTAF call is a recommended practice . Class E en route has none for a VFR airplane . Class D entry takes two-way radio communications established before entry and maintained inside . The controller establishes them by answering with the callsign, so "N123AB, standby" is established and "aircraft calling, standby" is not .

Class C entry takes that same callsign test, an altitude-reporting transponder, and ADS-B Out . Class B entry takes an explicit ATC clearance from the facility with jurisdiction . Vectors, a squawk code, and flight following are not a clearance, and the pilot waits for a clearance that names the Class B airspace . Class B also takes a pilot in command with at least a private pilot certificate, or a student trained under 61.95 . That student endorsement is dated within the preceding 90 days and names that Class B . Twelve Class B airports bar solo student operations entirely .

Class A, Class B, and Class C take an altitude-reporting transponder and ADS-B Out . So does the airspace at and above 10,000 feet MSL, except at and below 2,500 feet AGL. The Mode C veil is the airspace within 30 NM of a listed Class B primary airport . It runs from the surface to 10,000 feet MSL, under the shelves and outside them. The equipment also applies above a Class B or Class C ceiling, inside its lateral boundaries, to 10,000 feet MSL .

ADS-B Out adds two areas of Class E . The first is at and above 10,000 feet MSL, outside the 2,500 foot AGL exception. The second is at and above 3,000 feet MSL over the Gulf of Mexico within 12 NM of the coast. Flight there without the equipment takes an ATC authorization arranged in advance . The ADS-B request goes to ATC at least one hour ahead, through the FAA tool named ADAPT.

The speed limit below 10,000 feet MSL is 250 knots indicated . Within 4 NM of a Class C or Class D primary airport, at or below 2,500 feet AGL, the limit is 200 knots . That paragraph does not apply inside Class B. Under a Class B shelf, and in a VFR corridor through Class B, the limit is 200 knots . The 250 knot limit ends at 10,000 feet MSL, so traffic above that altitude closes faster .

Section 91.155 sets the VFR weather minimums :

A ceiling below 1,000 feet closes VFR flight beneath it inside controlled airspace designated to the surface for an airport . Three statute miles of ground visibility is the minimum to take off, land, or enter the pattern in a surface area . Where no ground visibility is reported, flight visibility of 3 statute miles satisfies the rule. Before flight the pilot compares the destination METAR and TAF against 1,000 feet and 3 statute miles. Either number below its minimum closes the field. The cloud clearance buffers are see-and-avoid reaction time, because an IFR airplane leaves a cloud without seeing the traffic outside it .

Special use airspace appears with hatched borders and a label of R, P, A, or MOA . The chart-edge panel gives its altitudes, times of use, and controlling agency, and no NOTAM announces the times listed there . TFRs never appear on the sectional, so the NOTAM check is an airspace check .

Shelf floors and ceilings are MSL numbers, so a 3,000-foot floor above a 2,200-foot plateau leaves 800 feet of usable altitude [cite:cug- airspace-b-c-d]. The Class E floor is also a minimums boundary . Below the vignette the pilot holds 1 statute mile and clear of clouds by day. Above 700 or 1,200 feet AGL the 3 statute miles and the cloud clearances apply.

Airspace risk is a position problem. A pilot who does not know the airplane is inside a ring cannot comply with the rules for that ring. Before flight the pilot fixes each boundary to a landmark and to the GPS overlay .

After a possible airspace deviation the order is:

The FAA waives the civil penalty or the certificate suspension for an inadvertent violation reported within 10 days [cite:ac-00-46f-asrs- waiver]. The waiver also takes a clean enforcement record for the preceding 5 years . On June 9, 2016, a private pilot accepted repeated sequencing at William P. Hobby Airport, a Class B airport in Houston, Texas . The pilot then stalled and spun from the traffic pattern.

Cones serve center vision, color, and detail, and need light . Rods serve peripheral and dim-light vision, detect motion, and see no color [cite:phak-ch17-rods-and- cones]. The center of the visual field holds almost no rods, so a light viewed directly at night can fade from view [cite:afh- ch11-night-blind-spot]. That night blind spot covers the central 5 to 10 degrees, so the pilot scans 5 to 10 degrees off center [cite:phak- ch17-off-center-viewing].

Full dark adaptation takes about 30 minutes, and a few seconds of bright white light destroy it . Four actions preserve it :

Red light preserves night vision and distorts red and magenta chart print, so dim white light is the chart-reading compromise .

Mild hypoxia degrades night vision first, and the AIM puts the onset at a cabin pressure altitude as low as 5,000 feet . The other hypoxia symptoms appear much higher. The Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge gives a lower figure, a measurable decline above 4,000 feet without supplemental oxygen, and fatigue compounds the loss [cite:phak-ch17-oxygen- supply]. Carbon monoxide from smoking and from exhaust fumes degrades dark adaptation [cite:aim-8-1-6-dark- adaptation]. Low blood sugar from a missed meal impairs night flight performance .

A lighted civil land airport beacon flashes white and green, and a military beacon shows two quick white flashes between the green . White and yellow marks a lighted water airport, and green, yellow, and white a lighted heliport . A beacon running in daylight inside a surface area often means ground visibility below 3 miles or a ceiling below 1,000 feet . That beacon is an advisory and not a substitute for a METAR [cite:aim-2-1-9-beacon-by- day].

Runway edge lights are white, and from the approach the threshold shows green and the far end red . Taxiway edge lights are blue, and taxiway centerline lights burn steady green .

A two-bar VASI shows red over white on the glide path, white over white high, and red over red low . A four-light PAPI shows two white and two red on path, more white high, and more red low . The pilot activates pilot-controlled lighting on the CTAF, with seven clicks for maximum intensity, five for medium, and three for low [cite:aim-2-1-8-pilot-controlled- lighting]. The lights run 15 minutes from the last activation, so the pilot activates them again on final [cite:aim-2-1-8-pilot-controlled- lighting].

Obstructions carry steady or flashing red lights at night and white strobes by day or night . The guy wires of a lit tower carry no lights and extend far to the sides of it.

Position lights are red on the left wingtip, green on the right, and white on the tail . They must be lighted from sunset to sunrise, on the surface and in flight . An airplane parked or moved in a night flight operations area must be illuminated, show position lights, or sit in a marked area . Anticollision lights run for all operations, day and night . The pilot in command can turn them off when conditions make that action safer, as with strobes in cloud .

Night VFR equipment is the day list plus five items :

The landing light is required only for hire, so a private night flight without one is legal and still unwise.

Three definitions of night apply :

Logged night time and night passenger currency therefore use different definitions .

To carry persons at night the PIC needs three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop . They fall inside the 61.57(b) window and within the preceding 90 days. The PIC makes them as sole manipulator, in the same category, class, and type if a type rating is required . Section 61.57(b) now states carrying persons rather than carrying passengers, after Amendment 61-157 in November 2024 . Day currency landings can be touch-and-go, and night currency landings must be to a full stop . A night full-stop landing counts toward day currency, and a day landing never counts toward night currency.

Personal night equipment starts with a dimmable white and red flashlight and spare batteries, white for the preflight inspection and red for the cockpit . The pilot organizes the night cockpit before dark . The charts come out, the electronic flight bag goes to night mode, and the flashlight sits within reach . Searching for gear in the dark is the typical night distraction.

Night pilotage runs on lighted features such as airport beacons, towns, and highway traffic . An unlighted river, ridge, or section line is not a checkpoint. A pilot misjudges distance and height at night, so obstacle and terrain clearance comes from the chart and the altimeter [cite:afh- ch11-approach-and-landing]. Over dark terrain the pilot crosschecks attitude and altitude on the instruments, because the view outside gives nothing .

Finding the airport at night is beacon first and runway lights second, because the beacon is visible far beyond the runway environment . Ground lights that disappear along a line mean that something stands between the airplane and them . A cloud, a ridge, or a fog bank produces that sign, the first warning of night instrument conditions. At night the pilot cannot see the clouds, so the METAR, the TAF, and the disappearing-lights check replace the view outside [cite:afh- ch11-orientation]. Night personal minimums run higher than day minimums .

Night taxi is slower and needs more verification [cite:afh-ch11-taxi- and-runup]. The pilot uses the blue edge lights and the green centerline, keeps the airport diagram out, and can request progressive taxi. The taxi or landing light stays on whenever the airplane moves, and goes off when another airplane faces it head-on [cite:afh- ch11-taxi-and-runup]. Strobes stay off during taxi and come on when the airplane enters the runway . Hold-short markings are four yellow lines, two solid and two dashed, and the paint is hard to see at night [cite:aim-2-3-5-holding- position-markings]. The pilot verifies position against the lighting, the signage, and the diagram, and stops and asks when unsure .

Another airplane's position lights show the direction it moves :

Autokinesis is a stationary light that appears to move when the pilot stares at it in the dark . The remedy is a moving scan. A false horizon is a line that is not the horizon . A sloping cloud deck, a lit shoreline, and a line of highway lights each produce one. The attitude indicator shows the true horizon.

A black-hole approach is an approach to a lighted runway across dark, featureless terrain, and it produces a dangerously low approach . The remedy is the visual glide slope indicator or a computed descent. Unusually bright runway and approach lighting makes the runway seem closer, and the result is a high approach . A pilot mistakes lights along a straight path, such as a road or a moving train, for runway lights . The beacon, the runway layout, and the CTAF traffic calls confirm the runway before the descent continues.

A failed landing light changes the flare technique and nothing else. The approach stays normal, and the pilot begins the roundout when the far-end runway lights appear to rise above the nose [cite:afh- ch11-approach-and-landing].

Night collision avoidance uses a slower and more geometric scan . Each movement covers no more than 10 degrees, and the pilot holds each area at least 1 second. Position- light logic replaces silhouette recognition, because a night target shows none.

Night currency is the legal minimum . Night proficiency is the personal-minimums question, and it names recent night landings in this airplane at this airport [cite:rmh- ch2-personal-minimums]. An inoperative position light after sunset stops the flight, unless the 91.213 process permits it . Section 91.213(d) excludes equipment that 91.205 requires for the kind of flight operation . Section 91.205 requires a position light for night VFR. The airplane flies by day, or after a mechanic repairs the light [cite:14cfr-91-205-c-night- list].

The night forced landing has three parts [cite:afh-ch11-night-forced- landing-steps]:

The pilot cannot see the surface until late in the descent [cite:afh- ch11-night-engine-failure]. The night fuel plan is larger than the 45-minute night reserve of section 91.151 . The pilot plans fuel stops where fuel is available at that hour, from the Chart Supplement's fuel listing . A 70-year-old private pilot with no logged night flight since 2020 extended his downwind over a dark lake in haze and lost control .

Solo flight requires a logbook endorsement for the specific make and model to be flown . An authorized instructor who gave the student training within the 90 days before the flight signs it . A Warrior endorsement does not authorize an Archer. The student confirms the 90-day window before each solo flight, and no grace period exists. The endorsement remains valid only while an authorized instructor updates the logbook each 90 days .

A student pilot must not act as pilot in command with a passenger aboard . Two of the eight limitations in section 61.89(a) set weather numbers. A student must not fly with flight or surface visibility below 3 statute miles by day, or below 5 statute miles at night . A student must not fly when the flight cannot be made with visual reference to the surface . A student therefore must not climb above a solid cloud layer on a solo flight, whatever the visibility above the layer.

These student limits are stricter than basic VFR, and the student follows the stricter limit. Section 91.155 sets 1 statute mile and clear of clouds in Class G airspace by day at or below 1,200 feet above the surface . A private pilot can fly legally in that 1 statute mile, and a student pilot on a solo flight cannot.

The eighth limitation covers each written condition an instructor places in the logbook. A student must not fly contrary to any limitation an authorized instructor placed in the logbook . A wind limit, a ceiling, a route or a return time each binds the student.

Solo privileges appear in the logbook and not on the certificate. On each solo cross-country the student carries the logbook and the student pilot certificate as evidence of the endorsements .

The definition of airworthy has two parts, and an airplane meets both or it is not airworthy. The airplane conforms to its type design, and the airplane is in a condition for safe operation . The owner or operator is primarily responsible for keeping the airplane in an airworthy condition . The pilot in command is responsible for deciding whether the airplane is in condition for safe flight .

After maintenance, no person operates the airplane until an authorized person approves it for return to service . That signature covers the work performed and no other part of the airplane . The record entry contains four items :

A 12-calendar-month interval runs to the last day of the twelfth month after the month of the inspection, and not to the anniversary date . The 100-hour inspection applies to carriage of persons for hire, and to flight instruction for hire in an airplane the instructor provides . An annual inspection can substitute for a 100-hour inspection . A 100-hour inspection substitutes for an annual only when a person authorized to perform annual inspections does it and the record entry calls it an annual . A flight can exceed the 100-hour limit by up to 10 hours, and only while en route to the inspection .

A decision that an airplane is legal to fly requires the maintenance records, because the cockpit documents do not show the inspection status . A standard airworthiness certificate is effective only while maintenance follows parts 43 and 91 . The expiration block on the certificate is blank for that reason. A registration certificate expires seven years after the last day of the month of issue .

An airworthiness directive is a regulation, and a person who operates a product that does not comply violates section 39.7 . Each directive has its own compliance time, and the operator meets that time rather than the date of the next inspection . An airplane with a current annual inspection is unairworthy while a directive is overdue. A special flight permit covers an airplane that does not meet airworthiness requirements but is capable of safe flight . The permit authorizes a flight to a place for repairs or storage .

A private pilot can perform preventive maintenance on an airplane the pilot owns or operates, outside parts 121, 129 and 135 . The list in part 43, appendix A, paragraph (c) is exclusive, and a task absent from that list is not preventive maintenance .

Section 91.213 applies to a flight with inoperative equipment, and section 91.205 applies at a later step inside that process . Three methods allow the flight :

The process in paragraph (d) starts with the item itself. The item must not be part of the VFR-day type certification instruments and equipment for the airplane . The item must not be required by 91.205, or by another rule of part 91, for the kind of flight the pilot conducts . The item is then removed, with the cockpit control placarded and the work recorded, or deactivated and placarded Inoperative . A certificated pilot or mechanic then determines that the item is not a hazard to the airplane . Legal and safe are two questions, and the PIC answers the second one under section 91.7(b) .

An owner flew a Mooney after his mechanic wrote on the invoice that the airplane was unairworthy . The engine lost its oil through a loose sump plug after takeoff, and the owner died .

Temperature normally falls with height, and the standard atmosphere uses about 2 degrees Celsius per 1,000 feet . That number is an average, and the environmental lapse rate of the actual air seldom matches it . Rising air cools by expansion, and no heat moves into or out of the parcel, which is the adiabatic process that forms each cloud . An unsaturated parcel cools about 3 degrees per 1,000 feet at the dry adiabatic rate . A saturated parcel cools between about 1.2 and 3 degrees per 1,000 feet, because condensation releases latent heat .

Dewpoint is the temperature air must cool to for saturation, and it measures the water vapor present . A pilot predicts fog, cloud bases and structural ice from the temperature-dewpoint spread, before any of them appear . In a rising unsaturated parcel the temperature falls 3 degrees per 1,000 feet and the dewpoint falls 0.5 degrees . The spread therefore closes about 2.5 degrees per 1,000 feet, and the cumulus base is near the spread divided by 2.5, times 1,000 feet .

Condensation releases latent heat, and that release is the energy source of a thunderstorm . Freezing rain at the altitude flown means a layer warmer than freezing lies above, because freezing rain requires an inversion .

Stability is the property of the air that enhances or suppresses vertical motion . A lifted parcel that stays warmer than the surrounding air keeps rising, and a parcel that turns colder sinks back . The numeric test compares the environmental lapse rate to the two adiabatic rates :

An inversion is a layer in which temperature increases with altitude, and it is strongly stable . Conditionally unstable air is stable while unsaturated, and it turns unstable once lifting saturates it . Stable air produces smooth flight, stratiform clouds, steady precipitation and poor visibility . Unstable air produces turbulence, cumuliform clouds, showery precipitation and good visibility .

Wind is air moving from high pressure toward low pressure . Above the friction layer the wind blows roughly parallel to the isobars . At the surface, friction slows the wind and turns it across the isobars toward low pressure . In the Northern Hemisphere the surface wind spirals clockwise and outward from a high, and counterclockwise and inward into a low .

Mountain waves form when a strong wind crosses a ridge into stable air on the far side . Non-convective low-level wind shear has three criteria :

Wind shear occurs at any altitude and in any direction, and fronts, inversions, sea breezes and strong surface winds produce it . A shear that removes the headwind on final reduces the airspeed and the lift at the same moment .

A front is the boundary zone between two air masses, and it has depth and a slope over the colder air . Its passage shows in three changes :

A cold front is steep and fast, gives a narrow band of showers and thunderstorms, and leaves rapid clearing and gusty wind behind it . A warm front is shallow and slow, and it brings widespread layered cloud and steady precipitation far ahead of the surface front . A winter warm front produces freezing rain, because warm air overruns cold air and forms an inversion .

An occluded front forms when a faster cold front overtakes a warm front and lifts the already rising warm air . A warm front occlusion lifts air that can be unstable, and embedded thunderstorms, rain and fog are then inside the stratiform deck .

The Aviation Weather Handbook lists three causes of turbulence, and pilots name frontal turbulence as a fourth :

Turbulence intensity uses four defined terms :

Severe turbulence causes large and abrupt changes in altitude or attitude, and the airplane may be momentarily out of control .

A thunderstorm cell needs three ingredients :

The life cycle runs about 30 minutes through three stages :

The cell enters the mature stage when precipitation reaches the surface, and the hazards are strongest near the end of that stage .

A pilot stays at least 20 miles from a thunderstorm identified as severe, and from one that gives an intense or extreme radar echo . A pilot flies between two echoes only where at least 40 miles separate them . A pilot does not fly under a thunderstorm, and does not fly under its anvil .

A microburst is a small and intense downdraft of up to 6,000 feet per minute . An airplane in a microburst first gains headwind and then loses 30 to 90 knots of it .

Structural icing needs visible moisture as supercooled liquid drops and an airframe surface at or below freezing . Clear ice comes from the slow freezing of large supercooled drops, which spread before they freeze, and it is glossy and difficult to see . Rime ice comes from small drops that freeze on impact, and it is rough, milky and opaque on the leading edges .

Freezing rain and freezing drizzle carry drops larger than 50 microns, and those drops flow aft before they freeze . The ice then forms aft of the deicing equipment, and freezing rain and freezing drizzle are the most dangerous icing conditions . Almost all icing occurs between 0 and minus 20 degrees Celsius, and about half of the reports are between minus 8 and minus 12 . The physical cold limit is minus 40 degrees .

Carburetor ice is a warm-day hazard, most likely below 70 degrees Fahrenheit with relative humidity above 80 percent . It can still form at 100 degrees Fahrenheit with humidity as low as 50 percent . Freezing weather is not the condition that produces carburetor ice.

Fog is a cloud based at the surface, and it reduces visibility to less than five-eighths of a statute mile . Fog seldom forms when the temperature-dewpoint spread is greater than 2 degrees Celsius . Radiation fog needs a clear night, light surface wind and a moist layer over land, and it often clears after sunrise . Advection fog forms when moist air moves over a colder surface, deepens with wind up to about 15 knots, and persists for days . Advection fog advances over the land at night .

Two pilots took off toward an isolated thunderstorm at Santa Teresa, New Mexico . A Convective SIGMET covered the airport before the flight, and neither pilot obtained a weather briefing . Both died .

The Aviation Weather Center produces the weather products, and Leidos Flight Service gives the briefings and the consultation . The EFB applications aggregate both sources. Flight Watch and HIWAS no longer exist. Three inflight sources remain:

A PIREP is the only direct observation of conditions aloft. UA marks a routine report and UUA marks an urgent one . The slash codes identify the elements :

AIRMETs advise of widespread conditions hazardous to VFR pilots and to operators of sensitive airplanes . Three letters divide them :

A SIGMET warns of non-convective conditions that affect an area judged to have a significant impact on the safety of flight operations. Those conditions are severe or greater turbulence, severe icing, a widespread dust storm, a widespread sandstorm, and volcanic ash . A Convective SIGMET covers severe thunderstorms, embedded thunderstorms, and lines of thunderstorms . The Aviation Weather Center issues Convective SIGMETs hourly at 55 minutes past the hour, valid up to two hours. Each one implies severe or greater turbulence, severe icing, and low-level wind shear .

The Graphical Forecasts for Aviation replaced the text Area Forecast over the continental United States . The Surface Analysis Chart shows observed pressure systems and front positions . That chart reports what exists, and not what will exist. A prog chart forecasts front and pressure positions at a stated future time .

The winds and temperatures aloft forecast gives direction in tens of degrees true, speed in knots, and temperature in Celsius . No wind forecast appears for a level within 1,500 feet of the station elevation. No temperature appears for a level within 2,500 feet of that elevation. The code 9900 means light and variable .

The Storm Prediction Center's Convective Outlook grades the risk of severe weather in six steps :

Coded winds reference true north in the METAR, the TAF, and the winds aloft forecast. Voice winds reference magnetic north in the ATIS, the tower report, and the AWOS . The runway number comes from a magnetic heading, so the pilot compares the voice wind with the runway.

Scheduled TAFs come four times a day at six-hour intervals . An amended TAF supersedes and cancels the previous TAF at once. The pilot checks for the amendment before each departure .

Weather radar shows precipitation and not cloud, so an empty radar picture is not proof of visual conditions . A pilot reads cloud from satellite imagery and precipitation from radar. Datalink radar is always at least 7 to 8 minutes older than its time stamp . The mosaic can be 15 to 20 minutes older than the age it displays, so it shows where the precipitation was . A pilot uses datalink weather for strategic avoidance and never for tactical maneuvering between cells .

FIS-B is free over the 978 MHz link to an ADS-B In receiver . It carries METARs, TAFs, NEXRAD imagery, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, NOTAMs, and more. FIS-B does not replace a preflight briefing, because it carries only some of the weather products and only some of the NOTAMs .

An outlook briefing serves planning when departure is 6 hours or more away . A standard briefing follows closer to departure. The phrase "VFR flight not recommended" is advisory, and the pilot makes the final decision .

A current METAR in good conditions does not cancel a TAF that forecasts worse conditions. The pilot plans against the trend and not against the single observation. The pilot reads the trend from the METAR sequence, the TAF change groups, the front's movement, and the closing spread. Each product carries an issue time and a valid time, and the pilot reads both times before the weather .

An instructor received a briefing with a Convective SIGMET in it. The instructor flew a student toward the storms at night, using a radar picture about ten minutes old. The Warrior broke apart in flight near Whitesville, Kentucky, and both died .

Class A runs from 18,000 feet MSL up to and including FL600 . Each operation in Class A is under IFR with an ATC clearance, and no VFR flight enters it .

Class B surrounds the busiest airports from the surface to about 10,000 feet MSL, and the FAA tailors each one in layered shelves . Entry requires an ATC clearance before the airplane crosses the boundary . Two-way radio contact alone is not a clearance. The pilot waits for the words "cleared into the Class Bravo airspace" .

Class B requires three items of equipment :

The pilot in command who takes off or lands in Class B holds at least a private pilot certificate . A student pilot with the training and endorsement of 61.94 or 61.95 also qualifies. A student, recreational, or sport pilot must not take off or land at the twelve airports of appendix D, section 4. Atlanta, Chicago O'Hare, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington National are five of the twelve .

The Mode C veil is a 30 nautical mile circle around each Class B primary airport, from the surface to 10,000 feet MSL. Inside the veil the airplane carries a transponder with Mode C and ADS-B Out . Flight beneath a Class B shelf needs no clearance, and the veil's equipment rules still apply there .

Class C surrounds airports with a control tower and a radar approach control. The usual shape is a 5 nautical mile core from the surface and a 10 nautical mile shelf from 1,200 feet. Both reach 4,000 feet above the airport elevation . A controller who answers with the airplane's callsign establishes communications, and a reply without the callsign establishes nothing . Class C requires a two-way radio, Mode C and ADS-B Out .

Class D surrounds airports with an operating control tower, reaches about 2,500 feet above the airport elevation, and is tailored to each airport . It requires a two-way radio and nothing else from the class itself .

Class E is the controlled airspace that is not Class A, Class B, Class C, or Class D . Class E below Class A ends at 18,000 feet MSL and does not include that altitude. A magenta vignette marks a Class E floor at 700 feet AGL, and a blue vignette marks a floor at 1,200 feet AGL . A dashed magenta line marks a Class E surface area, which is controlled airspace to the ground for an airport . VFR flight in Class E has no entry requirement and no communication requirement, because ATC controls Class E airspace for IFR separation .

Class G is uncontrolled airspace, which is each part not designated Class A through Class E . Above 1,200 feet AGL and below 10,000 feet MSL by day, the minimum visibility is 1 statute mile. The cloud clearance is 500 feet below, 1,000 feet above, and 2,000 feet horizontal . At night in that same band the visibility becomes 3 statute miles, and the cloud clearance does not change. Above 1,200 feet AGL and at or above 10,000 feet MSL, the visibility becomes 5 statute miles. The cloud clearance becomes 1,000 feet below, 1,000 feet above, and 1 statute mile horizontal .

The 10,000-foot rows apply only above 1,200 feet above the surface . A pilot 900 feet above an 11,000-foot ridge uses the row for 1,200 feet or less above the surface, whatever the MSL altitude. An airplane in the traffic pattern at night in Class G can operate with 1 statute mile of visibility and clear of clouds . That exception applies within half a mile of the runway.

Inside a surface area of controlled airspace, a VFR flight must not operate beneath a ceiling of less than 1,000 feet . Takeoff, landing, and pattern entry under VFR require at least 3 statute miles of ground visibility. That rule covers an airport in a Class B, Class C, Class D, or Class E surface area. Where no ground visibility is reported, flight visibility of 3 statute miles serves instead .

Special VFR applies inside the lateral bounds of a surface area, below 10,000 feet MSL, and nowhere else . The pilot requests the clearance, because ATC never offers it . The minimums are 1 statute mile of flight visibility and clear of clouds . A takeoff or a landing under Special VFR requires 1 statute mile of ground visibility . Where no ground figure is reported, 1 statute mile of flight visibility serves instead. Between sunset and sunrise the pilot meets the instrument rating requirements and the airplane meets the instrument equipment rule .

Prohibited areas carry P-numbers and ban flight entirely for security reasons . Restricted areas carry R-numbers and hold invisible hazards such as artillery, gunnery, and guided missiles. Entry into an active restricted area requires authorization from the using or controlling agency . Warning areas carry W-numbers, start 3 nautical miles offshore, and hold the same kinds of hazard over international waters . A military operations area separates military training from IFR traffic, and a VFR pilot checks the activity and enters with extreme caution . Controlled firing areas do not appear on the chart, because the firing stops when a spotter sees an approaching airplane .

A temporary flight restriction comes by NOTAM and never appears on a printed chart . Section 91.137 protects three things :

A large sporting event carries a standing security restriction, commonly 3 nautical miles and 3,000 feet AGL over a major stadium event. The exact terms are in the current FDC NOTAM issued under 99.7, and not in a regulation, so the pilot reads that NOTAM . A presidential or other VIP restriction moves with the person, and an interception can follow a violation .

Entry into an Air Defense Identification Zone requires a filed and activated flight plan, designated DVFR for a VFR flight . An airplane carries a transponder with Mode C at and above 10,000 feet MSL across the 48 contiguous states . The exception is airspace at and below 2,500 feet above the surface. The ADS-B Out requirement covers Class B, Class C, and the Mode C veil . It covers Class E at and above 10,000 feet MSL, except at and below 2,500 feet above the surface . It also covers Class E at and above 3,000 feet MSL over the Gulf of Mexico within 12 nautical miles of the coast .

A pilot's belief about position does not change the airspace boundary. The pilot fixes the position against the chart before the boundary, and holds the altitude until the landmark is behind the airplane. The preflight covers the airspace along the whole route, including the airspace a diversion would enter .

A careful private pilot flew with the terminal area chart open in the cockpit. He misidentified his checkpoints and climbed into the Los Angeles Terminal Control Area without a clearance. The airplane collided with a DC-9 over Cerritos, California. Eighty-two people died .

Section 61.93 applies to two kinds of solo flight. The first is any solo flight more than 25 nautical miles from the airport where the flight originated . The second is a solo landing at any location other than the airport of origination, at any distance .

Cross-country time for the certificate needs a landing more than 50 nautical miles in a straight line from the original point of departure . A 45-mile solo flight with a landing needs each 61.93 endorsement and adds nothing toward the 5 hours of 61.109(a)(5) .

Two exceptions change the endorsements required. A student can fly solo to one airport within 25 nautical miles of the airport where training normally happens . The purpose of that flight is practice takeoffs and landings at that airport . A student can fly repeated solo cross-country flights to one airport within 50 nautical miles without a separate endorsement for each flight . That route still requires a current 61.87 solo endorsement and the two 61.93(c) cross-country endorsements .

A solo cross-country outside those exceptions requires three endorsements . The first is a one-time endorsement for the specific category of aircraft, and the second is a one-time endorsement for the specific make and model. The third comes from the instructor who reviews the planning for that flight, and it states three things :

The known conditions are the conditions the instructor reviewed, and a material change means that review no longer describes the flight . The student must comply with each limitation in the endorsement, so a wind limit or a return time has the force of 61.93 . A student who continues past the endorsed return time acts as pilot in command contrary to a logbook limitation .

The instructor must determine the student's cross-country planning is correct for the flight . The instructor must also review the current and forecast weather and determine the flight can be completed under VFR . That determination covers the whole flight, including the last leg home.

Section 61.93(e) lists twelve flight training subjects for solo cross-country flight . The first is chart navigation by pilotage and dead reckoning with a magnetic compass, and the twelfth is control solely by reference to flight instruments. The other ten cover subjects from performance charts to crosswind landings .

The certificate requires 10 hours of solo flight time in a single-engine airplane, and 5 of those hours must be solo cross-country time . It also requires three solo takeoffs and three landings to a full stop at an airport with an operating control tower . Each of those landings involves a flight in the traffic pattern, so touch-and-goes do not count.

The long solo cross-country has three measurements :

The 150 miles are the sum of the legs, and the 50 miles are one leg measured in a straight line. Three legs of exactly 50 nautical miles total 150 miles and fail the segment test.

The legal fuel reserve under 91.151 is fuel to the first point of intended landing plus 30 minutes by day . That figure is the legal minimum, and the planning target is one hour of fuel at landing. A student ditched a Piper Archer in Tampa Bay with about 8 gallons in the unselected tank, 9 miles from home .

A student must not fly below 3 statute miles of flight or surface visibility by day, or without visual reference to the surface . Weather below the endorsed conditions therefore ends the flight. The plan is to land at the nearest suitable airport or turn back, while the airplane is still in visual conditions .

On each solo cross-country the student carries the pilot logbook and the student pilot certificate in the airplane . Those items are the evidence of the required instructor clearances and endorsements . A private pilot can leave the logbook at home. A student on a solo cross-country cannot.

The private pilot certificate requires age 17 . A pass on the knowledge test at 15 does not change that age requirement. An instructor endorsement authorizes the test, and it certifies that the ground training or home study is complete and that the applicant is prepared . A graduation certificate from an FAA certificated pilot school is the one alternative .

Part 61 incorporates the Airman Certification Standards by reference, and the test content aligns to that document . A student therefore studies from the ACS. The Airman Knowledge Test Report prints an ACS code for each question answered wrong . The evaluator reads those codes and retests the deficient elements at the checkride. The pre-checkride endorsement certifies that the applicant was retrained in those subject areas .

An applicant must pass the knowledge test within the 24 calendar months preceding the month of the checkride . The applicant presents the test report at the time of application for the checkride . After a failure, a retest requires additional training and an endorsement from the authorized instructor who gave that training .

The knowledge test is one of three evaluations. It primarily evaluates the knowledge and risk management elements, and an evaluator asks about those same elements out loud at the checkride . The knowledge test measures precise recall of numbers. The oral portion of the checkride measures understanding of mechanisms. A student studies the numbers for the knowledge test and the mechanisms for the checkride.

Normal takeoff configuration comes from the airplane manufacturer, and the pilot sets and checks it before taxiing onto the runway . The short-field takeoff starts at the very beginning of the usable takeoff area, in the short-field configuration . The ACS requires the pilot to hold the brakes while setting takeoff power . The pilot confirms takeoff power before brake release and the engine indications before rotation .

The pilot rotates at the manufacturer's speed and holds the obstacle-clearance speed until the airplane clears the obstacle, then accelerates to VY . Below that speed the climb angle is worse, and a premature liftoff can settle the airplane back onto the runway .

The soft-field takeoff uses the manufacturer's flap setting, which is 25 degrees in the Warrior . The pilot holds enough back-elevator pressure to lift the nose gear off as soon as possible . Neither the handbook nor the manual specifies full aft control travel. That attitude moves the airplane's weight from the wheels to the wings as early as possible . A wheel in a soft surface produces drag, and a wing produces lift.

The airplane leaves the surface below climb speed, and the pilot lowers the nose to accelerate inside ground effect until at least VX . An airplane that climbs out of ground effect below the recommended speed has much less climb performance . A Cessna 150H became airborne at a 1,720-foot grass strip near Bentleyville, Pennsylvania, and did not climb .

In a soft-field landing the pilot touches down at the slowest possible speed and holds the nosewheel off after the main wheels touch. The pilot carries power to keep the airplane moving and does not brake . The short-field approach is an accuracy approach to an aiming point at the manufacturer's published speed . Extra airspeed produces float, and float moves the touchdown point farther down the runway .

A forward slip loses altitude without an increase in airspeed. The maneuver serves a forced landing or an approach over an obstacle . A slip also reduces airspeed where wing flaps are inoperative or not installed . The mechanism is a marked increase in drag and a reduced vertical component of lift from the bank . The steeper the bank, the steeper the descent, and the pilot holds airspeed with the elevator at idle power .

In a crosswind the pilot lowers the upwind wing, because slipping into the wind makes it easier to remain on the original flightpath . The pilot removes the slip as the round out begins, and the airplane touches down with its longitudinal axis aligned with the runway . As little as 10 degrees of cornering angle creates a side load equal to half the supported weight .

A prolonged slip can uncover a fuel tank outlet and interrupt the fuel flow. The Warrior's manual requires the pilot to avoid prolonged slips or skids that lose more than 2,000 feet . The hazard applies to a tank in use that is not full . Some manuals restrict slips with the flaps extended, and the ACS asks about fuel flowage, tail stalls with flaps, and airspeed control . Airspeed indicators in some airplanes read with considerable error in a slip, so the pilot flies the known pitch attitude .

The go-around is power, then attitude, then configuration . The pilot applies full or maximum allowable takeoff power smoothly and without hesitation . The airplane is still in approach trim, so the pilot anticipates considerable forward elevator pressure to hold a safe climb attitude . After the descent stops, the flaps come up in small increments as the manufacturer recommends . A sudden and complete retraction can settle the airplane into the ground .

A steep turn begins with the area cleared and a distant reference chosen, at the manufacturer's recommended entry speed . Generally before 30 degrees of bank the pilot applies smooth back pressure and adds power . The ACS asks for 45 degrees of bank . Load factor is 1.41 at that bank angle . The rollout begins half the bank angle before the terminating heading, which is about 22 degrees at 45 degrees of bank . A pilot who loses altitude reduces the bank first, then raises the pitch attitude, because elevator alone steepens the bank .

In a ground reference maneuver the pilot holds a chosen track over the ground in wind . Bank angle follows groundspeed, so the pilot banks more steeply when groundspeed increases . Groundspeed is highest downwind and lowest upwind, so the steepest bank occurs in the turn off the downwind leg.

The pilot holds the straight segments by angling the airplane into the wind, by eye rather than by calculation . The entry is downwind, so the steepest turn comes first . Division of attention is a graded risk element in both Area V Tasks, and a graded skill in the ground reference Task . A pilot who fixates on one reference cannot determine rate, so the pilot flies by attitude and glances at the reference . These maneuvers happen between 600 and 1,000 feet above the ground .

An examiner builds a plan of action from one situation that covers several Areas of Operation at once . The instructor runs these eleven scenarios at Lesson 34. The applicant answers out loud, with the documents on the table.

Scenario 1. The applicant who is not eligible. An applicant arrives with a logbook, an IACRA application, and a knowledge test report dated 26 months ago. The applicant works through 61.39(a) item by item and names what is missing . The examiner then changes one fact at a time. The report is 23 months old, the endorsement is 3 calendar months old, or the medical certificate expired last week. Areas covered: I Task A, and 4-R's own prerequisites.

Scenario 2. The airplane the school gave you. The airplane is on the ramp with its airworthiness certificate, registration, and three logbooks. The applicant proves the airplane airworthy from the records, finds the next inspection due, and names what grounds the airplane if that inspection lapses. The examiner then removes one item, a landing light, a vacuum pump, or an attitude indicator, and asks whether the checkride can continue . Areas covered: I Task B, and 4-R's airplane documents.

Scenario 3. The pilot who is not fit. The applicant slept four hours, takes an over-the-counter antihistamine for a cold, and flies the day after a morning of scuba diving. The applicant runs IMSAFE out loud and names the rules that bind rather than advise. Areas covered: I Task H. The answers come from Modules 1-1 and 1-8.

Scenario 4. The rules behind the flight. The examiner asks who is responsible for the flight, and what that person can do in an emergency. The examiner also asks what the pilot in command reports afterward, and to whom. The examiner then adds one fact. A passenger offers to pay for the fuel, or the flight would be convenient for the applicant's employer. Areas covered: I Task A, III Task A. The answers come from Module 1-2.

Scenario 5. The cross-country on the table. The applicant brings a completed navigation log for the assigned route. The examiner asks for five things:

Each number carries a source. Areas covered: I Tasks D and F, VI Tasks A and B.

Scenario 6. The airspace on the route. With the sectional open, the examiner takes the route one airspace at a time. The examiner asks for the class, the entry requirement, the equipment requirement, and the VFR minimums at the planned altitude. The route then crosses a Class C shelf, a MOA, and a temporary flight restriction published this morning. Areas covered: I Task E. The answers come from Modules 2-5 and 3-5.

Scenario 7. The weather you decided on. The applicant brings the briefing used for the plan. The examiner asks what the applicant requested, which products the applicant read, and what each product showed. The examiner then asks which single item would have stopped the flight, and adds a temporary condition below personal minimums to the TAF. Areas covered: I Task C. The answers come from Modules 2-4, 3-3 and 3-4.

Scenario 8. The airplane you fly. The examiner asks four questions:

The applicant answers from the airplane's own manual, open on the table. Areas covered: I Task G. The answers come from Modules 1-6, 1-7 and 1-9.

Scenario 9. The engine that quits. At 3,500 feet over unfamiliar ground, the engine stops making power. The applicant flies the flow out loud, picks a field, and gives the reason. The applicant then states the transmission, the frequency, and the transponder code. The same failure then happens at 400 feet on the climbout. Areas covered: IX Tasks A and B. The answers come from Module 1-15.

Scenario 10. The radio that stops. The applicant is inbound to the towered home airport and hears nothing. The applicant decides which half of the radio failed, names the squawk, and describes the arrival. The examiner then adds a light gun signal on the downwind and asks what the signal means and what the applicant does. Areas covered: III Tasks A and B. The answers come from Modules 1-11 and 1-14.

Scenario 11. The flight that has to change. One hour from the destination, four conditions apply:

The applicant makes the decision, names the first action, and names the pressure behind the decision. Areas covered: I Tasks D and H, VI Task C. The answers come from Modules 1-1, 1-16 and 2-1.

Appendix 1 permits an examiner to suspend any of these scenarios and return to it later . An answer that gives only a memorized definition does not satisfy the Task. An answer that gives the number, the source, and the decision satisfies the Task .

Thirty accidents anchor the thirty teaching Modules of Phases 1, 2 and 3. In each one, the Points of its Module, applied at one moment, would have ended the flight safely.

In each of the thirty, the decision that mattered came before the emergency.

An examiner asks what the rule requires, and then asks for a decision. The airplane is legal, the forecast is marginal, and a passenger wants to be home tonight. The pilots of these thirty flights answered that second question wrongly.

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 asks each of the 830 Points in this Module. The reading below is grouped the way the examiner's plan of action is grouped, by Area of Operation, with the Modules that answer each one:

Study guide — Module 4-R (PDF)

Write the quiz answers in full, out loud where you can. Run the eleven mock oral scenarios with the instructor at Lesson 34. The deficiencies that come out of that session set the reading for Lesson 36, and Lesson 37 is the checkride.