Flight Deck Management

A specific ACS mechanic: if an applicant fails to use aeronautical decision-making (ADM), including SRM/CRM, as applicable in any Task, the evaluator notes that Task as failed — and also adds the ADM Skill element from the Flight Deck Management Task to the Notice of Disapproval (ACS Appendix 2, Safety of Flight). That element is AI.V.B.S4 ("appropriately manage risks by utilizing ADM, including SRM/CRM"), which is why it follows you around the entire practical test. This Task also carries an explicit pointer to Appendix 2 in the ACS itself.

The skill element names the contents:

• Identify the pilot in command — who is flying, and who is not
• Safety belts and shoulder harnesses — how to fasten and unfasten
• Doors — how they open, and when they don't
• Passenger conduct and the sterile aircraft expectation
• Propeller blade avoidance
• Emergency procedures

The regulatory floor sits underneath it. Briefed: each person on board must be briefed on how to fasten and unfasten their safety belt and, if installed, shoulder harness, before takeoff (91.107(a)(1)). Notified: each person must be notified to fasten the belt and harness before the aircraft is moved on the surface, takes off, or lands (91.107(a)(2)). Briefed before takeoff; notified before the airplane moves.

Each person on board must occupy an approved seat or berth, secured by a safety belt and, if installed, shoulder harness, during movement on the surface, takeoff, and landing (91.107(a)(3)). The exceptions that matter for training:

• A person who has not reached their second birthday may be held by an adult occupying an approved seat or berth, provided the child does not occupy or use any restraining device (91.107(a)(3)(i), and see 91.108(j)).
• Seaplanes and float-equipped rotorcraft: the person pushing off from the dock and the person mooring at the dock are excepted from the seating and belt requirements during surface movement.
• A person on board for sport parachuting may use the floor as a seat.

It becomes a training brief with a passenger briefing inside it. Add:

• Positive exchange of flight controls — the three-step procedure, briefed prior to flight, is required content of the preflight briefing (AIH ch. 9; ACS Appendix 2). This is the single most important sentence you will say to a first-lesson student.
• When and how you will take the airplane, and that you may do so without discussion.
• The sterile flight deck expectation and the phases it applies to.
• What the student should do with their hands and feet during your demonstrations — following along versus off the controls entirely.
• How to speak up. The AIH puts this as an instructor responsibility: teach the learner how to take charge during a flight, because a PIC must know when to tell any passenger — even a Designated Pilot Examiner — that their actions distract and interfere with the safe conduct of the flight (AIH ch. 9).

Three steps, plus a visual check (ACS Appendix 2; AIH ch. 9; AFH ch. 1):

1. The pilot seeking to hand over control says, "You have the flight controls."
2. The second pilot acknowledges immediately: "I have the flight controls."
3. The first pilot says again, "You have the flight controls," and visually confirms the exchange.

The learner follows the same procedure when returning the controls, and stays on the controls and keeps flying until the instructor says, "I have the flight controls." The FAA's justification is accident history: numerous accidents have occurred due to a lack of communication or misunderstanding about who actually had control, particularly between learners and flight instructors. There should never be any doubt about who is flying the aircraft.

Because letting a learner stay on the controls costs the instructor full and effective control of the aircraft. Anxious learners can be incredibly strong and usually exhibit reactions inappropriate to the situation, and if a recovery is necessary there is absolutely nothing to be gained by having the learner on the controls and fighting for the airplane (AIH ch. 9). So the take is total: announce it calmly, take the airplane, and get the student's hands off.

Two nested limits, both from AIH ch. 9: learners should never be allowed to exceed the flight instructor's limits, and flight instructors should not exceed their own ability to perceive a problem, decide on a course of action, and physically react within their ability to fly the aircraft. That second limit is the definition of an altitude floor, a bank limit, or an airspeed gate — you set it by working backward from your own reaction time, not the airplane's capability. Instructors should always guard the controls and be prepared to take control.

14 CFR 121.542 requires airline flight crewmembers to refrain from nonessential activities — eating, reading, chatting — during critical phases of flight: all ground operations involving taxi, takeoff, and landing, and all other flight operations below 10,000 feet except cruise flight. Part 91 GA pilots aren't bound by 121.542, but the AIH's position is that it holds true for the entire aviation community. Your obligation: not only teach the concept of a sterile flight deck but also model such behavior during flight instruction (AIH ch. 9).

Two separate failures. Center of gravity: unsecured or improperly loaded baggage may adversely affect the CG, and the AFH makes baggage loading and security something the pilot supervises (AFH ch. 2). Loose-object hazard: anything unrestrained becomes a projectile in turbulence or a control jam under a seat or behind a rudder pedal. For a training flight add the instructor-specific items — kneeboards, tablets, headset bags, and the fuel tester, which is the object most likely to end up under a seat rail. Teach the habit as a physical sweep before the door closes, not a glance.

Name the trap first. Automation intended to reduce workload can remove the pilot from the process of managing the aircraft, reducing situational awareness and leading to complacency; the information from these systems needs to be continually monitored, and pilots need to know both equipment capabilities and equipment limitations (AFH ch. 2). The teaching moves that follow:

• Program on the ground, verify before the wheels turn; the ACS wants the applicant to properly program and manage the aircraft's automation (AI.V.B.S3).
• Make the student say what the automation is about to do before engaging it, so a mis-programmed leg is caught by prediction, not surprise.
• Have them fly the same segment raw-data periodically, so the skill doesn't decay into dependence.
• Personal electronic devices are the same risk category — brief them as such, and enforce the sterile deck.

Teach the check, not the aphorism. Before departure the student confirms the database currency of the equipment being used and confirms the charts on the tablet cover the route and alternates, then confirms the backup: what happens when the tablet overheats on the glareshield in July. The regulatory anchor for the associated go/no-go is the requirement to become familiar with all available information concerning that flight and to address inoperative equipment (91.103, 91.213). If a navigation database is out of date, the decision is which operations are still legal and sensible — teach the student to reach that determination themselves rather than hearing your verdict.

Teach the philosophy along with the list. The AFH's framing: the checklist is a memory aid that helps ensure critical items are not overlooked, but checklists are of no value if the pilot isn't committed to using them, and pilots who fail to take them seriously become complacent and rely solely on memory (AFH ch. 1). Two instructor moves: establish the habit pattern early — a major objective in primary flight training is to establish habit patterns that serve the pilot throughout their entire flying career, so what you tolerate at lesson four is what they will do at hour 900; and use the check-then-verify model — checklists need not be "do lists," since the actions may be accomplished by flow and the checklist then used to confirm nothing was missed, with emphasis on the check in checklist.

At a minimum, prepared checklists should be used for (AFH ch. 1):

• Preflight inspection
• Before engine start
• Engine starting
• Before taxiing
• Before takeoff
• After takeoff
• Cruise
• Descent
• Before landing
• After landing
• Engine shutdown and securing

The evaluator's standard is not "was the paper touched." Assessing proper checklist use depends upon the specific Task, and in all cases the evaluator determines whether the applicant demonstrates CRM, appropriately divides attention, and uses proper visual scanning. Where reading the actual checklist would be impractical or unsafe, the evaluator instead assesses performance of published or recommended immediate-action memory items, along with a review of the appropriate checklist once conditions permit. In a single-pilot aircraft, the applicant demonstrates these same CRM principles as SRM, reviewing the checklist after accomplishing the elements if doing so during would be unsafe or impractical (ACS Appendix 2). Teach exactly that hierarchy to students: memory items now, list when it's safe.

SRM is CRM applied to the single-pilot operation, and it integrates four components (AFH ch. 2):

• Situational awareness — accurate perception of the operational and environmental factors affecting the flight; a logical analysis based on the airplane, external support, environment, and the pilot.
• Human resource management — effective use of all available human, equipment, and information resources: weather briefers, line personnel, maintenance, crew, other pilots, air traffic personnel. The communication components are inquiry, advocacy, and assertion — a student who cannot be assertive with a controller has an unfinished SRM education.
• Task management — pilots have limited capacity; once information flow exceeds the ability to process it, additional information goes unattended or displaces what was already being processed. Distraction and fixation are the named impediments.
• Aeronautical decision-making — the process, not the outcome.

The teaching lever is workload timing: completing routine tasks as early as possible precludes overload in the later, more critical stages of flight.

Distraction management is a trainable skill, and the FAA treats it as one. NTSB statistics show that most stall/spin accidents occurred when the pilot's attention was diverted from the primary task of flying — 60 percent during takeoff and landing, 20 percent preceded by engine failure — and the real danger was inadvertent stalls induced by distraction during routine flight, not intentional practice (AIH ch. 9). So:

• Introduce distractions deliberately. The instructor's responsibility is teaching the learner to divide attention between the distracting task and maintaining control. The AIH's sample list includes dropping a pencil and asking the learner to pick it up, asking them to find a heading to an airport on a chart, reset the clock, get something from the back seat, read the OAT, compute true airspeed, identify terrain, or pick a forced-landing field.
• Expect them on the test. The evaluator should incorporate realistic distractions during the flight portion to evaluate situational awareness and the ability to divide attention inside and outside the flight deck (ACS Appendix 2).
• Teach the recovery, not just the tolerance: aviate first, then answer, then back up several checklist items.

As the best unplanned ground lesson available. Hand the problem to the student and let them work 91.213 out loud with the POH, the equipment list, and the placard: is the item required by the type design, by the airworthiness certificate's kind of operation, by 91.205 for this flight, or by an AD; can it be deactivated or removed and placarded, and by whom. Then the judgment layer that the reg doesn't supply — whether this airplane with this item deferred is the right airplane for this lesson. Note the instructor discipline: the answer has to be theirs before it's yours, or you've taught them that a discrepancy is something an instructor resolves.