Emergency Equipment and Survival Gear

No. The Area XII note requires Tasks B and C for ASEL/ASES, and Task E or F, Task G, and at least one other Task for AMEL/AMES. This Task is a candidate for that "one other Task" on a multiengine ride and a plausible add-on for a single-engine ride.

Weight it as a ground-heavy Task (AI.XII.D.S1–S3):

• Identify appropriate equipment and personal gear.
• Brief passengers on proper use of on-board emergency equipment and survival gear.
• Simulate ballistic parachute deployment procedures, if equipped.

Two of the three are things you say, not things you fly — so the evaluator will most likely have you deliver the briefing.

An ELT is a self-contained transmitter that automatically, upon the impact of a crash, transmits an emergency signal on 121.5, 243.0, or 406.0 MHz (AFH glossary G-5). Requirements come from 91.207:

• Required for most U.S.-registered civil airplanes; for part 91 operations an approved personal type or automatic type ELT in operable condition satisfies it, and an ELT meeting TSO-C91 may not be used for new installations after June 21, 1995 (91.207(a)).
• Mounting must minimize the probability of damage in a crash impact; fixed and deployable automatic types must be as far aft as practicable (91.207(b)).
• Batteries must be replaced or recharged when the transmitter has been in use for more than 1 cumulative hour, or when 50 percent of useful life (or of useful life of charge) has expired. The new expiration date must be legibly marked on the outside of the transmitter and entered in the maintenance record (91.207(c)).
• Inspection within 12 calendar months after the last inspection for proper installation, battery corrosion, operation of the controls and crash sensor, and the presence of a sufficient radiated signal from the antenna (91.207(d)).

Analog 121.5/243 MHz ELTs should only be tested during the first 5 minutes after any hour, and if a test must be made outside that window it should be coordinated with the nearest FAA control tower or flight service station. Tests should be no longer than three audible sweeps, and if the antenna is removable, a dummy load should be substituted (AIM 6-2-5). The reason for the window: every test is indistinguishable from a real distress signal until someone rules it out, and the 5-minute window is when search-and-rescue and monitoring aircraft expect to hear one.

The other half of K1 is catching an accidental activation: check the ELT frequency before engine shutdown at the end of each flight — and any time the airplane has been handled hard, moved, or worked on (AIM 6-2-5). A hard landing, a shove into the hangar, or maintenance can set one off, and nobody in the airplane will know.

Instructor angle: build both habits into the syllabus. The post-flight 121.5 listen costs ten seconds and belongs in the shutdown flow you teach on the very first lesson, right next to the master switch. And when a student asks to "test the ELT," that is your opening to teach why the hour matters.

The requirement does not apply to aircraft while engaged in training operations conducted entirely within a 50-nautical mile radius of the airport from which the local flight operations began (91.207(f)(3)). That is the one that touches your daily job — local instructional flights inside 50 NM.

Two more worth knowing (91.207(e)): a person may ferry a newly acquired airplane from the place of possession to where the ELT is to be installed, and may ferry an airplane with an inoperative ELT from a place where repairs cannot be made to a place where they can. On those ferry flights, no person other than required crewmembers may be carried.

The extinguisher is item F — fire extinguisher (location and operation) in the FAA's SAFETY passenger briefing (PHAK 2-25). "Location and operation" is two separate obligations — a passenger who knows where it is but not how to release the pin has been half-briefed.

The operating detail — agent type, capacity, discharge duration, and any cabin-use restriction — is specific to the unit installed and comes from its own placard and the AFM/POH, not from a generic rule. Read yours and be able to state its numbers. What the FAA does give you is where the extinguisher sits in the sequence, and those are the limitations that matter in flight:

• It comes before ventilation, not after. Smoke may be cleared by opening the cabin air control, but this should be done only after the fire extinguisher (if available) is used (AFH 18-10). Vent first and you feed the fire the air it wanted.
• It does not end an electrical fire. After isolating the circuit and turning off the battery master and alternator switches, materials that have already ignited may continue to burn (AFH 18-9). Discharging the extinguisher is not a reason to keep flying.
• It does not clear the smoke it creates. With severe smoke the pilot goes to oxygen masks if available and an immediate descent (AFH 18-10) — so plan for a cabin that is worse right after you use it, not better.
• It buys minutes, not a resolution. For any in-flight fire the AFH's frame stands: the airplane may be structurally damaged to the point control could be lost at any moment, may be susceptible to explosion, and is expendable (AFH 18-9). The extinguisher is a tool for reaching the ground, not for saving the flight.

Instructor angle: hand the extinguisher to the student on a preflight and have them talk you through it while holding it. A briefing item that has never been rehearsed with the actual object is a briefing item the student will recite and not perform.

Frame the trade honestly: deployment results in the loss of the airframe, but deploying within an acceptable flight regime prevents injuries and saves lives (AFH 18-22). The system rockets a parachute into a deployed state so the parachute lowers the aircraft slowly enough that occupants usually survive the impact with minor or no injuries (AFH 18-22, 17-13).

The AFH's qualifying conditions: catastrophic loss of controllability due to a collision or mechanical failure, actual loss of control, or pilot incapacitation (AFH 18-22).

Instructor responsibilities:

• Understand and follow the procedures for arming and disarming the system before and after flight (AFH 18-22).
• On preflight, check the mounts, safety pin and flag, and the activation handle and cable (AFH 17-13).
• Know that the design may include landing gear and seats intended to absorb vertical impact forces over a longer time (AFH 18-22).
• Know the evacuation procedures — once on the ground there are hazards from the deployed canopy and surface winds (AFH 18-22).

Brief any passenger with access to a deployment mechanism regarding the conditions for a safe deployment, and at a minimum brief all passengers on the basic sequence of steps for deployment (AFH 18-22).

The decision rule to state plainly: generally, the passenger would deploy the system only if the pilot were incapacitated (AFH 18-22). That single sentence prevents the two failure modes — a passenger who pulls the handle during a startling but recoverable event, and a passenger who does not know it exists when the pilot is unconscious.

Beyond the parachute, the same briefing covers:

• Fire extinguisher location and operation.
• The ELT.
• Exits and how they latch.
• Seat belts and brace position.
• The survival kit's location and contents.

An Emergency Autoland (EAL) system can take control of the aircraft when necessary for a safe outcome — most obviously in case of pilot incapacitation, when an installed EAL system may take control of the airplane and navigate to an airport (AFH 1-12, 18-22). It can activate automatically or by manual activation by a pilot or a passenger (AFH 18-22).

The automatic logic: if the EAL senses erratic flying, it stabilizes the aircraft and checks for pilot responsiveness. Without further input it initiates an emergency descent, and without responsiveness after that it initiates the process for an automated landing (AFH 18-22).

Once activated it (AFH 18-22):

• Broadcasts on the last selected frequency and on Guard, 121.5 MHz, in a recognizable non-human synthesized voice, repeating call sign and intent to divert to a particular airport and runway.
• Sets the transponder to squawk 7700.
• Pauses 25 seconds after the initial broadcast to let ATC coordinate with conflicting traffic.
• Within 12 miles of the selected runway and at or below 12,000 feet MSL, broadcasts on the tower frequency or CTAF and continues broadcasting position via ADS-B, announcing call sign, "pilot incapacitation," position, airport and identifier, and time to landing — plus a similar one-minute-out call.

Airport selection considers weather, wind, runway length, and towered/non-towered status; it only considers airports with an RNAV or GPS approach, prefers towered fields, and uses aircraft-type-dependent runway requirements, drawing on obstacle and terrain databases. If GPS coverage is lost, the airplane continues straight flight without attempting to land until coverage resumes (AFH 18-22).

This is the part passengers assume away, so say it out loud. Current EAL capabilities do not include (AFH 18-22):

• Detecting and avoiding other aircraft.
• Receiving or reacting to ATC instructions or NOTAMs.
• Avoiding MOAs, special use airspace, Restricted Areas, or TFRs.
• Turning on aircraft lights.

So the system is a survivability tool for an incapacitated pilot, not an autopilot upgrade and not a substitute for the pilot's own emergency decision-making. Teach it the way you teach a ballistic parachute: know exactly what event justifies pressing the button, and know that pressing it ends your control of the outcome.

The ACS sets the horizon: survival gear — water, clothing, shelter — for 48 to 72 hours (AI.XII.D.R1). Build the kit backward from that number and from the terrain you will actually cross, in three categories the ACS names: climate extremes (hot/cold), mountainous terrain, and overwater operations.

The FAA's own preflight risk questions put it plainly for the environment element: "if the trip is over remote areas, is there appropriate clothing, water, and survival gear onboard in the event of a forced landing?" (PHAK 2-9, the environment element of PAVE). Teach students to ask it during flight planning, not during the emergency — the gear decision has to be made on the ground, and by definition a forced landing happens where you did not plan to be.

The instructor's angle: your students will fly the same three routes for a year and stop thinking about it. Build the question into the cross-country planning lesson so it survives after you.

Both are the same planning question with different answers: what does the airplane put you into, and what does the terrain do to the plan?

Climate extremes (K3a). The cold case is the one with a flying technique attached: a landing in snow should be executed like a ditching, in the same configuration and with the same regard for loss of depth perception (whiteout) in reduced visibility and on wide-open terrain (AFH 18-7). So on a snow-covered route the student is planning a water landing over land — drag it in, no more than intermediate flaps on a low-wing, gear up unless the AFM/POH says otherwise. Then the gear question: after an intact arrival, the survival problem is exposure, and the ACS horizon is water, clothing, and shelter for 48 to 72 hours (AI.XII.D.R1). Heat flips which item is scarce — the same 48-to-72-hour rule, weighted toward water and shade.

Mountainous terrain (K3b). Field selection is the whole problem, and the AFH gives you the specific options and the specific traps (AFH 18-5):

• Do not let the preference for open ground lead you to a spot between trees or obstacles that cannot be reached without a steep descent.
• A river or creek can be an inviting alternative in otherwise rugged terrain — but confirm the water or creek bed can be reached without snagging the wings.
• Roads carry one extra caution: manmade obstacles on either side may not be visible until the final portion of the approach, and most highways and even rural dirt roads are paralleled by power or telephone lines. Only a sharp lookout for the supporting poles gives timely warning.
• If trees are unavoidable, that has its own technique — see Task XII.B's terrain discussion.

Add the density-altitude piece from Task XII.B: high terrain is high density altitude, so the glide covers less ground and the arrival is faster. And the reach-back to the gear list: a mountain forced landing may be intact and still unreachable by rescue for a day or more, which is what the 48-to-72-hour number is actually for.

The instructor's move for both: run the PAVE environment question — "if the trip is over remote areas, is there appropriate clothing, water, and survival gear onboard in the event of a forced landing?" (PHAK 2-9) — against the specific route on the planning table, not in the abstract.

Gear only helps if the airplane floats long enough to get it out, so teach the ditching technique with the equipment:

• A well-executed water landing normally involves less deceleration violence than a poor tree landing or a touchdown on extremely rough terrain, and an airplane ditched at minimum speed and in a normal landing attitude does not immediately sink — intact wings and fuel tanks, especially when empty, provide flotation for at least several minutes, even if the cabin is just below the water line in a high-wing airplane (AFH 18-7).
• Loss of depth perception over wide smooth water risks flying into the water or stalling in from excessive altitude; drag the airplane in when possible (AFH 18-7).
• Use no more than intermediate flaps on low-wing airplanes — the water resistance of fully extended flaps may cause asymmetrical flap failure (AFH 18-7).
• Keep retractable gear up unless the AFM/POH advises otherwise (AFH 18-7).
• A landing in snow is executed like a ditching, in the same configuration and with the same regard for loss of depth perception in whiteout conditions (AFH 18-7).

The minimum-sink connection from Task XII.B belongs here: minimum sink is useful when time in flight matters more than distance, and the AFH's example is ditching at sea (AFH 3-23).

• Owning gear the pilot cannot find or use. A raft in the baggage compartment behind a jammed door is decoration. Brief location and operation (AI.XII.D.S2).
• No passenger briefing at all, or one that covers seat belts and stops. If the airplane has a ballistic parachute, the briefing is not optional — a passenger with access to the handle needs the deployment conditions (AFH 18-22).
• Expired or unverified ELT battery. The date must be marked on the transmitter and in the maintenance record (91.207(c)) — teach students to look at both during preflight.
• Assuming the 50 NM training exception applies to a cross-country. It applies only to training operations conducted entirely within a 50 NM radius of the departure airport (91.207(f)(3)).
• Treating an autoland system or a parachute as a substitute for judgment, rather than as a last resort with known limitations (AFH 18-22).
• Planning gear for the departure climate instead of the route. The 48-to-72-hour standard applies where the airplane comes down, not where it took off (AI.XII.D.R1).