Preflight Assessment

What changes is the objective: you must understand preflight assessment, apply that knowledge, manage associated risks, demonstrate appropriate skills, and provide effective instruction — so you're graded on whether a student would leave your walkaround able to inspect the airplane alone. The airplane inspection itself is the easy half. Knowledge element K3 spells out four things you have to teach, not merely do (AI.V.A.K3a through K3d):

• Which items should be inspected
• The reasons for checking each item
• How to detect possible defects
• The associated regulations

"Reasons" and "how to detect" are the instructor-only half.

Because a student who only knows the sequence cannot generalize. Give them the reason and the item survives a checklist they've never seen. Example chain, three levels down on one item — the stiff cabin door: a door that's hard to latch or doesn't fit snugly means you inspect the doorpost and surrounding structure for misalignment, which could indicate structural damage (AFH ch. 2). The student who was taught "check the door" checks the door. The student who was taught why is now inspecting the airframe.

Name the cue, not the category. From AFH ch. 2:

• Spar lines — the lateral rivet lines across the wing and stabilizers. Look for distortion, ripples, bubbles, dents, creases, or waves; structural deformity may indicate internal damage or failure.
• Rivets — cracked paint or a black-oxide film around the head, which forms when a rivet works free in its hole.
• Fiberglass and plastic wingtips, fairings, covers — cracks radiating from screw holes. Cracks that continued beyond a stop-drilled hole, or new adjacent cracks, may lead to in-flight failure.
• Composite structure — no rivets to guide you, so delamination shows as bubbles, fine hairline cracks, or a change in sound when gently tapping with a fingertip.
• General approach — the inspection begins while walking up to the airplane on the ramp: gear/structure misalignment, distortion of wings or fuselage or tail, skin damage, staining, dripping, puddles.

Three regs, in this order, because they build:

• 14 CFR 3.5(a) — "airworthy" means the aircraft conforms to its type design and is in condition for safe operation. That's the definition your student must be able to say.
• 91.7(a) — no person may operate a civil aircraft unless it is in an airworthy condition; 91.7(b) — the PIC is responsible for determining whether the aircraft is in condition for safe flight. The owner/operator is primarily responsible for maintenance, but 91.7(b) puts the go/no-go on the pilot in the seat.
• 91.203 / 91.9 — the documents that must be aboard or affixed: current Airworthiness Certificate, current Registration Certificate (91.203), the operating limitations in the form of an approved AFM/POH, placards, instrument markings, or a combination (91.9), plus current weight and balance data, compass correction card if required, external data plate (45.11), and a radio station license for flights outside the U.S. or airplanes over 12,500 pounds (FCC rule) (AFH ch. 2).

Logbooks aren't normally kept in the airplane, so it has to be a deliberate procedure — inspect the logbooks or a summary of airworthy status prior to flight (AFH ch. 2). What's required:

• Annual within the preceding 12 calendar months (91.409(a))
• 100-hour if operated for hire (91.409(b)) — the one that bites a flight school
• Transponder certification within the preceding 24 calendar months (91.413)
• Static system and encoder certification within the preceding 24 calendar months, required for IFR in controlled airspace (91.411)
• 30-day VOR check when using VOR for IFR (91.171)
• ELT inspection within the preceding 12 calendar months (91.207(d)) and battery due (91.207(c))
• Life-limited parts status per the TCDS (91.417), AD compliance and entries (91.417(a)(2)(v)), FAA Form 337 major repair/alteration (91.417)
• Inoperative equipment handled under 91.213

Any discrepancy is addressed before flight, not noted for later.

Use the telling-and-doing progression (AIH ch. 9), which for a walkaround is unusually clean:

1. Instructor tells, instructor does — you inspect, narrating each item with the reason. The student is passive here, and this is the only step where they are.
2. Student tells, instructor does — the student walks you around and tells you what to check and why while you touch the parts. This is the step new CFIs skip, and it's the one that catches misconceptions before the student is absorbed in doing the task.
3. Student tells, student does — the student inspects and verbalizes. You watch for technique errors and prevent faulty habits from forming.

Primacy is why step 2 matters: it's important the learner gets it right the first time, and a misunderstanding caught here is cheap (AIH ch. 9).

• Pattern without perception — walking the sequence, touching nothing, seeing nothing. Correct by asking "what would a bad one look like?" at each item, forcing detection rather than recitation.
• Reading the checklist as a do-list only — the AFH position is that checklists need not be do-lists; the actions can be accomplished and then the checklist used to verify, with emphasis on the "check" in checklist (AFH ch. 1). Teach the flow-then-verify habit early so it survives into complex airplanes.
• Resuming after an interruption from where they think they stopped. The correction is a rule, not a scold: back up several items or restart the section.
• Sumping without looking — drawing a sample and dumping it. Make them hold it up and state what they see.
• Trusting the gauges. Master ON, note fuel quantities on the gauges and compare to the tank level by visual inspection (AFH ch. 2) — the comparison is the point.
• Quitting when it's cold or raining. This is the one you fix by modeling, every single flight.

Tone is a graded instructor skill here. The AIH gives the anti-example directly: an indoctrination in preflight procedures emphasizing critical precautions "because emergencies in flight can be caused by an improper preflight and are often disastrous" is one of four scenarios listed as likely to turn off a new learner on the first lesson. The recommended contrast is a preflight presented to familiarize the learner with the airplane and its components, followed by a perfectly normal flight (AIH ch. 8). The consequences get taught — later, after an acquaintance with normal operations exists, when they inform rather than frighten.

Model it out loud on yourself first — a student who has never heard an instructor say "I'm short on sleep, we're doing pattern work instead of the cross-country" has no template for the behavior. Then make the self-assessment a required, spoken item in the pre-lesson brief, so it's a habit rather than a mood. Frame it against the PAVE categories that map onto this Task's first four risk elements — Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment, External pressures (AI.V.A.R1 through R4) — and note for yourself that the Task carries a fifth element, aviation security concerns (AI.V.A.R5), that PAVE does not cover; teach it separately rather than assuming the mnemonic caught it. Set the student's personal minimums in writing, on the ground, before the pressure exists. The failure mode you're inoculating against is the speed-accuracy tradeoff: the more hurried the work, the more slips (AIH ch. 3).

Divided attention on the ramp, and the ramp is an active environment: airport personnel, passengers, trucks, other vehicles, aircraft, and errant people and animals (AFH ch. 2). While you're explaining a fuel drain to a student crouched under a wing, nobody is watching the taxi lane. Concrete mitigations:

• Position yourself so you can see the movement area over the student's shoulder.
• Brief the student that ramp movement is only as directed, and escort passengers who aren't under your direct supervision — the AFH makes both the pilot's responsibility.
• Be present for refueling: remove passengers, witness the fueling to confirm correct fuel and quantity, and confirm caps and cowls are secured afterward.
• Powerful aircraft produce exhaust blast or rotor downwash that could easily make a light airplane uncontrollable — that's a reason to move the lesson, not to talk over it.

Teach it as the same go/no-go decision as the airplane half, run on the outside world, and anchor it in 91.103 so the student knows it is a regulatory duty and not a preference:

• Weather — 91.103(a) requires weather reports and forecasts for a flight under IFR or not in the vicinity of an airport, plus fuel requirements and alternatives available if the planned flight cannot be completed. Teach the student to name the specific hazard they are watching (ceiling trend, crosswind component, icing level), not "the weather looks okay."
• Terrain — the airplane's climb performance is what has to clear it. High elevation, high temperature, and high humidity produce a high density altitude, and as air density decreases aircraft performance decreases (PHAK ch. 4). Make the student compute it, then compare it to the terrain on the route.
• Route selection — pick the route that preserves outs: airports within reach, terrain you can outclimb, airspace you are authorized and equipped for. The ACS's own environment list is weather, airports, airspace, terrain, obstacles (AI.V.A.R3).
• Obstructions — 91.103(b) requires runway lengths at airports of intended use and the takeoff and landing distance information for any flight. Teach the student to read the total distance over a 50-foot obstacle column, not the ground roll (PHAK ch. 11), and then to look at what is actually off the departure end.

The instructor point: a student who inspects the airplane beautifully and never opens a forecast has met half of one Task.

Two distinct things, and students conflate them.

Your regulatory obligation before you train anyone. Under 49 CFR 1552.15(c) you must verify your student's citizenship before giving flight training. Either keep a copy of the document for 5 years, or endorse the student's logbook and your own record with the document type and its control or sequential number, certifying that they are a U.S. citizen or national (AC 61-65, endorsement A.14). If you cannot make that certification, 49 CFR part 1552 is where you go before the first lesson, not after it. Note too that a student pilot certificate itself issues only after TSA vetting (AC 61-65 ¶15.3).

Airplane and ramp security, taught on the walkaround. Make the preflight the moment the student asks who has had access: secure the airplane and controls after every flight, look for tampering and for anything that shouldn't be aboard, don't leave keys or documents in an unlocked airplane, and challenge or report people around the aircraft who have no reason to be there. The ACS treats security as its own risk element on this Task and again as airport specific security procedures in Area XIV — so it is not a footnote to PAVE.

The private and commercial skill elements are the target (mirrored in AI.V.A.S1 through S4):

• Inspect the airplane with reference to an appropriate checklist
• Verify the airplane is in condition for safe flight and conforms to its type design
• Perform a self-assessment
• Continue to assess the environment for safe flight

Note the tense on the last one — assessment is continuous, not a gate you pass at the hangar. Teach the student to re-open the environment question after engine start, at the run-up, and again at the hold line.

The AIH's explanation phase requires all of these before the airplane is touched (AIH ch. 9):

• Clear, pertinent objectives based on the learner's known experience and knowledge — "by the end of today you will inspect the fuel system unaided and tell me what a bad sample looks like," not "we'll do a preflight."
• Lesson content, performance expectations, and evaluation measures — how you'll grade it.
• The precise actions the learner will perform, plus a description of the end result of those actions.
• Appropriate safety procedures — on the ramp, that's propeller avoidance, movement only as directed, and where to stand.
• An explicit invitation to ask questions about any step they don't understand, before leaving the brief.

Acknowledge and explain the deviation immediately. The AIH says this twice, in the demonstration phase and again in the telling-and-doing discussion: if the demonstration does not closely conform to the explanation, the deviation should be immediately acknowledged and explained (AIH ch. 9). The reason is mechanical, not moral — learners generally imitate the instructor's performance, so an unexplained deviation is what they will copy. It also protects your credibility, which is the currency you spend on everything else you teach.

Separate the task into discrete elements and let them become good at each one before combining (AIH ch. 8). On a walkaround that means: today the fuel system only — quantity, grade, sumping, caps, vents. Next lesson add the engine and propeller. The instructor's guidance for a discouraged or slow-progressing learner is to assign more easily attained goals; for the fast learner the opposite applies — constantly raise the standard, because learners who make few mistakes may assume error correction is unimportant and become overconfident (AIH ch. 8). Do not, however, invent deficiencies for the learner's benefit: unfair criticism immediately destroys a learner's confidence in the instructor.

Teach the sample as evidence, and teach what each kind of evidence implies:

• Water shows as bubbles or a distinct layer at the bottom of a clear tester — different refractive index, so it's visible even in colorless samples. Keep sumping until samples are clean.
• Sediment points at the tank or the truck, not the drain.
• Wrong grade or wrong color is a mismatch to check against the placard at the filler, which is part of the operating limitations under 91.9.
• Not clearing — or recurrence after rain, which implicates a cap seal — is a maintenance discussion, not a fourth sump.

The instructor point: the student needs a stopping rule in advance. Without one, the third sample becomes "good enough" under time pressure — a textbook slip driven by the speed-accuracy tradeoff (AIH ch. 3).

From the AFH's visual preflight assessment (AFH ch. 2), these are the ones that reward a specific look:

• Seat rails and seat lock pins — seats must latch properly and the rail holes must not be abnormally worn to an oval shape. Teach this one by consequence: a seat that slides back on rotation is an accident, not an inconvenience.
• Seat belts and shoulder harnesses — free from fraying, latching properly, securely attached at the mounting fittings.
• Windows and windshield — clean, free of cracks and crazing. A dirty, scratched, or severely crazed window can result in near-zero visibility due to light refraction at certain sun angles.
• Fuel selectors — checked for proper operation in all positions, including OFF. Stiff selectors, illegible tank positions, or missing detents are unacceptable.
• Magnetic compass — a cloudy face, bubbles in the fluid, or a partially filled case renders the compass unusable, and the correction card must be legible and complete.
• The mechanical VSI is the only flight instrument a pilot has the prerogative to adjust (with a small screwdriver; the qualifier matters — an electronically generated VSI on a glass display is not pilot-adjustable). Everything else requires a certificated repairman or mechanic. Students love this fact and it teaches the boundary of pilot authority.
• Altimeter — set to the current setting, should indicate field elevation within 75 feet for IFR flight.

Budget time for it and say so in the brief. Integrated Flight Deck airplanes have specific pre-flight requirements:

• Verifying the flight deck reference guide is in the aircraft and accessible
• Checking system-driven removal of the "Xs" over engine indicators
• Checking pitot/static and attitude displays
• Testing low-level alarms and annunciator panels
• Setting fuel levels
• Verifying that avionics cooling fans, if equipped, are functional

The AFM/POH specifies how; the checklist may be extensive, and the AFH's caution is that pilots should allow time to ensure all items are properly addressed (AFH ch. 2). A student who learned the walkaround as a six-minute ritual will short this — set the expectation before the first glass lesson.