Lesson Plans to Train Like You Fly: A Flight Instructor's Reference for Scenario-Based Training

By Arlynn McMahon

This guide for flight instructors (CFIs) presents lesson plans in the form of scenario-based maneuver briefings. A rich resource for active instructors, these lesson plans are also helpful to CFI applicants preparing their own materials. This fourth edition incorporates critical information previously published in Train Like You Fly: A Flight Instructor’s Guide to Scenario-Based Training, current best practices, and tried and true advice for teaching both visual and instrument flight.

This book is designed to work in complement with any syllabus and the FAA Test Standards. It explains how to teach each maneuver, making the flight instructor’s favorite syllabus even more effective and enjoyable for clients. Each maneuver briefing features a series of drawings instructors can discuss with their clients or replicate in the classroom and an accompanying script to teach from, which includes a story or motivation on why and how the maneuver is applied in actual flight. Common errors are discussed in the form of keys to success to positively inspire clients to become sound aviation citizens.

In addition to lesson plans, this book includes templates, checklists, and assignments to build proper flight preparation habits and help determine a student pilot’s readiness to act as pilot-in-command. These tools are especially helpful to the applicant preparing for their initial CFI checkride, as well as active CFIs preparing students for major flight training milestones, such as first solo, solo cross-country, and their checkride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aviation Supplies & Academics, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781644253069

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LESSON-PLAN4-Cover.jpg

Lesson Plans to Train Like You Fly: A Flight Instructor’s Reference for Scenario-Based Training

Fourth Edition

by Arlynn McMahon

Aviation Supplies & Academics, Inc.

7005 132nd Place SE

Newcastle, Washington 98059

[e-mail] | 425-235-1500 | asa2fly.com

Copyright © 2023 Aviation Supplies & Academics, Inc.

First edition published 2011. Edition 4 published 2023.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and Arlynn McMahon assume no responsibility for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

None of the material in this book supersedes any operational documents or procedures issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, aircraft and avionics manufacturers, flight schools, or the operators of aircraft.

ASA-LESSON-PLAN4-EB

ISBN 978-1-64425-306-9

Additional formats available:

Print Book ISBN 978-1-64425-305-2

eBook PDF ISBN 978-1-64425-307-6

Cover photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: McMahon, Arlynn, author.

Title: Lesson plans to train like you fly : a flight instructor’s reference for scenario-based training / Arlynn McMahon.

Description: Fourth edition. | Newcastle, Washington : Aviation Supplies & Academics, Inc., [2023]

Identifiers: LCCN 2023011872 (print) | LCCN 2023011873 (ebook) | ISBN 9781644253052 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781644253069 (epub) | ISBN 9781644253076 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Flight training. | Teachers—Training of. | Problem-based learning. | Lesson planning.

Classification: LCC TL712 .M394 2023 (print) | LCC TL712 (ebook) | DDC 629.132/52071—dc23/eng/20230322

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023011872

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023011873

About the Author

Arlynn McMahon soloed on her sixteenth birthday, and since then, her feet have rarely been on the ground, as she has flown general aviation in all 50 states. Arlynn is a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and earned an MBA in Strategic Leadership from Amberton University.

Arlynn has helped more than 1,000 students and CFIs fulfill their dreams of flight. She joined Aero-Tech, Inc., at Bluegrass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, as a flight instructor in 1984 and later became vice president, chief instructor/training centers manager, responsible for all training and flight activities at the company’s three locations, overseeing a fleet of 30 airplanes. She was the 2009 National CFI of the Year and the 2009 recipient of the NATA Award for Excellence in Pilot Training. She has written training curricula for other flight schools and an OEM. Today she is a consultant and a guest speaker at many regional and national aviation events and seminars.

Arlynn holds an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate for multi-engine privileges and a Commercial Pilot Certificate for single engine privileges. She is an FAA Gold Seal and NAFI Master Instructor, with CFI, CFII, MEI, AGI, and over 12,000 accident-free hours, including 9,000 hours dual given. She was one of the first Designated Sport Pilot Examiners.

She is also a Distinguished Toastmaster, a Master Gardener, and a volunteer at the county emergency management and preparedness office. She holds an FCC General Amateur (HAM) Radio License and a USCG Six-Pack captain’s license with a sailing endorsement (OUPV Merchant Mariner). Arlynn married her flight instructor, Charlie. They work together and play together. When not in a cockpit, they share sailing, scuba diving, and all types of fun in the sun.

Effective Flight Training

CHAPTER 1

Congratulations on your decision to become an effective aviation instructor! As an effective instructor you will be expected to teach specific maneuvers and you will be asked to teach people who have never left Mother Earth to make decisions while being totally outside of their natural environment. It’s a big job.

Watch an Olympic ice skater perform and you know they had to learn specific jumps and spins—maneuvers to demonstrate the mastery of their sport. However, we enjoy the sport because of the smoothness, choreography, and total success of the performance. The same is true of pilots. A handful of maneuvers and skills are required to demonstrate proficiency and to pass the test. Whereas an ice skater performs in a confined area and in a controlled environment, pilots are free to fly anywhere, in an endless variety of environments. Most flights are not routine. Some contain the unexpected and pilots often find the need for something never before practiced.

Flying is a thinking sport. It doesn’t require great physical strength as other sports do. More like a game of chess, flying requires a pilot to understand how each decision affects the next move and a successful outcome.

Most pilot training courses place little or no emphasis on attaining thinking skills. As a result, when a newly trained pilot flies into a new environment or experiences a flight outside of their normal routine, that pilot is sometimes unprepared to make smart decisions.

When all is said and done, flying and teaching flying have more to do with people than with airplanes.

Maneuver Briefings versus Lesson Plans

A maneuver briefing introduces an individual maneuver. Every CFI practical exam requires the applicant to demonstrate their ability to teach a preflight lesson on a maneuver to be performed in flight.

However, multiple maneuvers are usually covered in a single flight lesson. A lesson plan is an organized outline for a single instructional period. It tells the instructor which teaching method is to be used for the lesson, what is to be taught, and in what sequence to present information.

Holistic Flight Training

Does any student pilot dream of endless hours of touch and gos? Does any new pilot expect to be corralled into a practice area to master steep turns? I don’t think so. Many student pilots report how their excitement for flying was beaten out of them with boring, routine, and mindless training. What they expect and what they dream about is going someplace and spending fun and interesting hours as a pilot. Think of it as holistic flight training. It is holistic because it encourages clients to use all of their senses—and to think. It persuades a client to stay excited about this marvelous sport through the completion of training and beyond.

By presenting maneuvers in a scenario that mimics how they might use it in real life, the client is propelled into the understanding and application levels of learning—even while sitting in the classroom during the ground briefing. Mimicking real life during training fosters safe habits that a client will use long after becoming a certificate-holder. Clients learn not only what to do but also how to think in the endless variety of situations that may occur while flying in the real world. Training in this way is not boring. It is not routine and it is not mindless.

What’s In Store

In Section II you’ll find simple to use maneuver briefings described in such a way that a new instructor can feel comfortable presenting them quickly. You’ll enjoy teaching them and sharing your flying stories to illustrate important concepts. You may have to role-play a bit, but it will be worth it.

After brief maneuvers are covered, Section III will present recommendations for lesson planning to instill single pilot resource management. and ways to conduct an effective debriefing. You’ll also find ideas on how to include such topics as radio communications and regulations into training flights, how to instill confidence, and how to develop the client’s awareness for risk management, as well as preparing your first student for their first solo. This section promotes making a good pilot rather than one that meets the minimum standards required to pass a practical exam.

Section IV shares ideas for flight reviews and aircraft checkouts. And finally, Section V is completely devoted to the new instructor with topics covering important items such as how to speak, preventing instructional surprises, and sharing the habits of highly seasoned flight instructors.

The appendices are filled with examples of training aids and tools that you can revise for your training plane and environment.

Everything is assembled in one place for a good instructor, not just one that meets the minimum standards required to pass a practical exam.

Common Elements of Maneuver Briefings

CHAPTER 2

The maneuver briefings in this book are appropriate for a new instructor-applicant to use during an FAA initial flight instructor practical exam. They are also appropriate for any instructor looking for tools to refresh teaching techniques. Each maneuver briefing in this book includes the following elements.

Whiteboard Drawing

According to the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook (FAA-H-8083-9), clients remember only 13% of what they hear, such as in an instructor’s lecture. Clients remember 88% of what they hear and see. Therefore, it is important to draw concepts and illustrate elements of the maneuver, as well as the relationships between elements. For that reason, this book provides a whiteboard, or chalkboard drawing for each maneuver as an example of how an effective instructor might draw the important elements to remember.

Another suggestion might be to make the drawing on paper instead of the board. In this way, after the postflight briefing the instructor can present the drawing as a handout. For a client who may have several days between flight lessons, a drawing can help to recall the previous lesson during a couch flying session and promote review before the next lesson. With the instructor’s name and phone number noted in the corner of the handout, the client will never forget their favorite instructor.

Suggested Materials

The well-equipped flight instructor uses training aids to conduct effective training. This section suggests materials and resources that should be organized before the presentation begins.

Lesson Introduction

Every student pilot snaps to attention when the instructor shares a personal story; it’s a powerful way to start a lesson. Each introduction includes a motivation section that features a story or a scenario to illustrate how the maneuver might be used in real life, and an objective section that briefly describes why learning the maneuver is valuable to the student.

Components of the Maneuver

Each maneuver is presented with elements that flow seamlessly from one to the next so the presentation is organized. This allows the client to understand the relationships between elements. The material is organized in its most logical sequence for a coherent presentation that clients (as well as evaluators) will appreciate.

Understanding the elements of a maneuver is fundamental. It is only after the client understands the individual elements that they are able to make smart decisions that are safe and within the limitations of their aircraft and their qualifications.

Instructor applicants are required to demonstrate instructional knowledge during the FAA practical exam. This refers to the applicant’s ability to presents the what, how, where, when, and why involved with the task. Maneuver briefings contained in this book support an instructional level of knowledge.

Common Errors versus Keys to Success

Flight instructor practical exams require that a flight instructor applicant present and discuss common errors. The purpose is to assist the evaluator in determining whether the applicant can recognize, analyze, and correct errors.

This is a case where the method of testing is contrary to the method of instructing. Experienced instructors know that it can be detrimental to introduce a laundry list of what not to do to a client. Simply introducing the idea of something not-to-do can manifest it. Therefore in this book, the negative not-to-do list of common errors is presented in the positive as keys to success. Presenting keys to success allows the evaluator to determine that an applicant is knowledgeable in common errors. Yet at the same time, the instructor is able to present the material in a positive manner that reinforces desired client habits.

The 10-20-30 Rule

The 10-20-30 rule is a teaching device used during flight. It is introduced during the maneuver briefing to remind clients how to properly divide attention. It helps them to maintain situational awareness inside and outside of the cockpit.

According to the easy to remember 10-20-30 rule, ten seconds of every minute are focused inside the cockpit, performing tasks such as scanning flight instruments, scanning engine gauges, and updating the GPS map with airspace considerations. Every minute includes 20 seconds focused on outside ground references—surveying terrain features, updating your position near obstacles, or helping to keep the runway parallel to the flight path. In general, this time is used to remain aware of what is being flown over . . . or near. The remaining 30 seconds of every minute are focused on scanning for traffic—in front of the plane, to each side, above, below, and all around.

This is not to say that 10 consecutive seconds must be spent focusing on things in the cockpit followed by 20 consecutive seconds strictly looking at ground references. Instead, this is simply a way to communicate the proportion of time that should be used to achieve these tasks.

Minimum Tolerances during FAA Practical Exams

In this book, tolerances in altitude, heading or airspeed are not introduced to the client. While the instructor is required to know the minimum standard required for passing the practical exam, that might not be the completion standard for the lesson. Experienced instructors encourage clients to do their best with words such as, the goal is to hold altitude.

Testing standards are provided for the instructor’s reference in sections called Minimum Tolerances During FAA Practical Exams. This solidifies the notion that the requirements to pass the exam represent the minimum requirements rather than those desirable in a good pilot. Unless the instructor has decided that training clients to meet minimum acceptable standards is the objective, it is recommended that practical exam tolerances be introduced to a client during the portion of the syllabus designated as preparation for the practical exam.

References to FAA practical test tolerances in this book use the editions that were current at the time of publication. Use the most current testing tolerances when creating your own briefings and lesson plans.

Fill-in-the-Blanks Template for Your Airplane

The Planning Your Practice section is designed to encourage instructors to research the aircraft configuration, V-speeds, and specific procedures needed for the training airplane and your local area. Use this section to customize the maneuver briefing you’ve prepared for your aircraft. Present the maneuver to your client with information relative to your training aircraft, your airport, your flight school, and local airspace.

How to Use the Maneuver Briefings

CHAPTER 3

Incorporating the Briefings

Use the following tips to help you incorporate the ideas presented in this book into your own lesson plans.

Quickly read through the maneuver briefing to familiarize yourself with its overall flow.

Study each step of the presentation and be thoroughly familiar with as much information related to the elements as possible.

Study the image of the whiteboard drawing and notice how the drawn presentation supports the discussion.

Using the fill-in-the-blanks template, refer to the Pilot’s Operating Handbook for the airplane used during flight training, your school standard operating procedures, and local charts to research the specific procedures and limitations that are appropriate.

Using the maneuver briefing as a script, rehearse presenting the maneuver, incorporating procedures for your specific airplane, while simultaneously reproducing the whiteboard drawing.

Record yourself giving the briefing. Listen to the recording and evaluate (or allow someone else to evaluate) your presentation. Rehearse until you don’t need a script and you can smoothly in present the briefing and draw your whiteboard illustration.

Further Notes on Briefings

Using a digital recorder to rehearse is more effective than practicing your teaching on another person. The recorder will allow you to play back and listen to your own presentation. You will hate doing this, but it is the most effective tool to save time and money in training. You are more likely to pick up on opportunities for improvements than another person who doesn’t understand what your intentions are for the presentation.

The maneuver briefing is a script that assumes the reader is an instructor, teaching a client. Thus scripts use we to define when the client and instructor will perform a task together. I is used to define when the instructor will perform a task and you defines the client performing the task.

Adapt the maneuver briefing to the client. Flight instructors are often called upon to teach clients with varying backgrounds and experience. Maneuver briefings in this book have been written to present material to a client without prior knowledge of the maneuver. During the Flight Instructor FAA practical exam, the evaluator will act as a pilot during portions of the exam and will indicate if the pilot’s background warrants revision.

When teaching clients, don’t use the same scenario every time the maneuver is reviewed. In lessons that review the maneuver, present a different scenario; challenge the student with a variety of real-life situations. This allows supervised practice in developing decision-making skills. In this book, a scenario is included in the motivation portion of the maneuver briefing and ideas for additional scenarios follow at the end of the maneuver briefing. The fill-in-the-blanks template encourages you to think of a scenario that is appropriate for your individual client and training environment.

Revise the maneuver briefing periodically. With experience, you will find opportunities to tweak the presentation, finding ways to make it more concise or clear. In addition to further experience, updates may be needed due to availability of new instructional aids, changes in regulations, or revisions to textbooks.

Airport Operations

CHAPTER 4

This chapter contains a maneuver briefing on the subject of traffic patterns.

Area of Operation:

Preflight Lesson on a Maneuver to be Performed in Flight

Objective:

To determine that the applicant understands the elements associated with a selected task and applies that knowledge when delivering ground instruction. The applicant exhibits the skill to deliver instruction on the selected maneuver using a lesson plan, teaching methods, and teaching aids. The applicant demonstrates instructional knowledge by describing and explaining the purpose of the maneuver, the elements of the maneuver, the associated common errors, and the desired outcome(s), including completion standards.

Traffic Patterns

Suggested Materials: Whiteboard and markers, POH, Chart Supplement, and AC 90-66.

INTRODUCTION

Spend at least three minutes introducing the maneuver to the client. Describe the situations that are motivation for learning it, as well as the objectives to strive for.

Motivation

The traffic pattern is a standardized rectangle around the runway. It provides an orderly flow of traffic for aircraft arriving, departing, and operating in the vicinity of an airport. At the same time, the traffic pattern provides a flow of cockpit tasks the pilot must complete in preparation for takeoff and/or landing.

Objective

In this lesson you learn the correct procedures to arrive at, depart from, or operate around an airport.

CHALKBOARD TALK

Elements of the Maneuver

First, a look at the universal elements of the maneuver—those elements that are not aircraft-specific.

Pattern leg names:

• Downwind

• Base

• Final

• Crosswind

Research

Takeoff begins before leaving the dispatch area. The first thing a pilot does in preparation for takeoff is research:

• Research in Chart Supplement (CS):

‣ Some airports have special procedures including noise abatement or obstacle clearance.

‣ Traffic pattern altitude. What it is, why it’s important; in the Chart Supplement, or 1,000 feet above ground level (AGL).

‣ Who will you communicate with?

> AWOS/ATIS/ASOS (for the latest information about the airport)

> ATC/CTAF/into the blind (who you might talk to, around the airport).

‣ Identify notable obstacles and wires, and the procedures to avoid them.

• The active runway should be the one most aligned with wind.

• Turns are normally to the left.

• Major runway markings and lighting.

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Add the cockpit tasks and aircraft configuration changes to complete along each leg:

• Set up. About 10 miles outside a nontowered field. At controlled fields it depends on the airspace.

‣ Listen to ATIS/AWOS.

‣ Complete aircraft pre-landing checklists.

‣ Communicate with ATC/CTAF.

• Downwind. Primary objective on downwind is to stabilize the airspeed. Starting abeam of the touchdown point:

‣ Slow to approach speed and stabilize.

‣ Maintain wind corrections to fly and remain parallel to runway.

‣ Maintain traffic pattern altitude, don’t begin a descent while flying away from the runway.

‣ Turn base only when you are ready. If you begin abeam the touchdown point, you should be about 45° (however, this may change).

‣ Continue to scan for traffic.

• On base. The objective on base is to stabilize the glide path:

‣ Reduce power to achieve a speed of about 1.4 VS0.

‣ Begin stabilized descent.

‣ Continue to scan for traffic.

• Final. The objective on final approach is to make only small corrections as necessary:

‣ Reduce power to achieve a speed of about 1.3 VS0.

‣ Maintain a stabilized approach speed and glide path.

‣ Continue to scan for traffic.

‣ Mentally prepare for