Power-Off 180° Accuracy Approach and Landing (ASEL, ASES)

Touch down at a proper pitch attitude within 200 feet beyond or on the specified point, with no side drift, and with the longitudinal axis aligned with and over the runway centerline or landing path. Read it as −0 / +200 feet.

One navigation warning before you go looking: Appendix 3 files this material under "VIII. Takeoffs, Landings, and Go-Arounds / Task M. Power-Off 180° Accuracy Approach and Landing," even though the body of the ACS numbers it Area VII, Task O. The Area and Task lettering in FAA-S-ACS-25's own Appendix 3 disagrees with the body — the text is the right text, just filed under the wrong label.

Appendix 3 adds the go-around rule that makes this Task unlike every other landing Task: initiating a go-around as a result of an applicant's inability to complete this Task within the tolerances specified in the skill elements is considered unsatisfactory. Two qualifiers travel with it — runway safety concerns beyond the control of the applicant or evaluator that necessitate a go-around would not be considered unsatisfactory, and the applicant and evaluator must not sacrifice the safety of flight and force a landing to complete this Task.

So: never force it, but "I'll just go around if it isn't working" is not a plan here — it is the bust.

To instill the judgment and procedures necessary for accurately flying the airplane, without power, to a safe landing (AFH ch. 9). The underlying skill: the ability to estimate the distance an airplane glides to a landing is the real basis of all power-off accuracy approaches and landings.

Teach the connection explicitly, because it is what makes a student care: this is the engine-failure-in-the-pattern skill, rehearsed with a runway underneath it. A pilot who has the ability to accurately estimate altitude can also judge how much maneuvering is possible and safe during the glide, which is important to the choice of landing areas in an actual emergency.

And the perceptual limit that sets the altitude: with experience and practice, altitudes up to approximately 1,000 feet can be estimated with fair accuracy; above this level accuracy in judgment of height decreases, since all features tend to merge.

1. "Downwind, parallel to the runway, before-landing checklist complete — gear down if we had it."
2. "Abeam the spot — throttle closed. That's the downwind key position."
3. "Holding altitude while we decelerate to glide speed — the manufacturer's number, or 1.4 VSO."
4. "Speed's there — nose down to hold it, trim."
5. "Turning base. Watch how much crab I need — that tells me the wind and when I can use flaps."
6. "Base key position — the spot's at about 45° off the nose. Now I evaluate: high, low, or right?"
7. "Slightly high, which is where I want to be. Turning final."
8. "On final — 1.3 VSO, trimmed. Full flaps only when they can't make us land short."
9. "Short final — full attention on the landing now, not the spot."

That last line is the AFH's rule and it belongs in the narration: on short final, full attention is given to making a good, safe landing rather than concentrating on the selected landing spot.

• Downwind key position — when abreast of, or opposite, the desired landing spot, the throttle is closed and altitude maintained while decelerating to the manufacturer's recommended glide speed or 1.4 VSO. The point at which the throttle is closed is the downwind key position (AFH ch. 9). The starting altitude varies with the type of airplane but should usually not exceed 1,000 feet above the ground, except with large airplanes — greater accuracy in judgment and maneuvering is required at higher altitudes.
• Base key position (the 45° key position) — the point on base at which the intended landing spot appears to be on a 45° angle from the airplane's nose. From there, the approach and landing are the same as in the 90° power-off approach.

The teaching caution that matters more than the geometry: although the base key position is important, it should not be overemphasized nor considered as a fixed point on the ground. Many inexperienced pilots may gain a conception of it as a particular landmark, such as a tree, crossroad, or other visual reference, to be reached at a certain altitude. This misconception leaves the pilot at a total loss any time such objects are not present. Both altitude and geographical location should be varied as much as is practical to eliminate any such misconceptions.

That is an instruction to you: vary the setup deliberately, or you will teach a landmark instead of a skill.

No, and the distinction is worth making carefully.

The basic procedure in these approaches involves closing the throttle at a given altitude and gliding to a key position. Starting with the same energy (airspeed and height) each time the throttle is closed makes the maneuver more predictable (AFH ch. 9). That standardization is what turns judgment into a repeatable measurement — same abeam point, same altitude, same speed, same configuration, so the only variable left is the wind.

Varying the base key position is a different thing: the base key position is not the primary objective; it is merely a convenient point in the air from which the pilot can judge what to do such that the landing occurs at or just beyond the desired point. You standardize the entry so the student has a baseline, and vary the middle so they learn to evaluate rather than to arrive somewhere.

From the key position, the pilot should constantly evaluate the situation.

Because it inverts, and the inversion is not intuitive (AFH ch. 9). On a power-off approach the power is fixed at idle, so pitch attitude is adjusted to control the airspeed — and this also changes the glide or descent angle:

• Above best glide speed — pitching down increases airspeed and steepens the descent; pitching up reduces airspeed and shallows the descent
• Below best glide speed — pitching down increases airspeed and shallows the descent; pitching up reduces airspeed and greatly steepens the descent

The operating rule that resolves it: if the airspeed is too high, raise the nose; when the airspeed is too low, lower the nose. And the consequence of ignoring it: if the pitch attitude is raised too high, the airplane settles rapidly due to slow airspeed and insufficient lift. For this reason, the pilot should never try to stretch a glide to reach the desired landing spot.

Teach it at altitude first, with an aiming point on the ground, so the student sees a pull produce a steeper descent before they ever see it near a runway.

Full flaps should be delayed until it is clear that adding them will not cause the landing to be short of the point (AFH ch. 9). That is the sentence.

Around it:

• Initial flaps may be extended prior to the base key position if needed
• Flaps may be lowered gradually on final with pitch adjusted to hold the descent angle and airspeed
• If the approach is planned to be slightly high in the current configuration, the pilot will be assured of making the aiming point — deliberately fly it energy-rich
• The pilot should never try to stretch the glide or retract the flaps to reach the desired landing spot

The reason to prefer a slip over flaps when correcting high, which is the instructor-depth version: a slip is removable without penalty, whereas retracting flaps on an approach could lead to an unwanted loss of altitude (AFH ch. 9). Flaps are a one-way commitment.

No. While square patterns demonstrate good planning, they are not required and may not be appropriate for every approach. For example, when conditions are not as expected, pilots may need to dog-leg away from the runway on base or dog-leg toward the runway on base (AFH ch. 9).

The full toolkit, all used in order to stabilize the remaining approach, to reach the desired aiming point at an appropriate speed, and to touch down where planned:

• S-turns
• Slips
• Early or late extension of flaps
• Reduce airspeed below best glide
• Increase airspeed slightly above best glide in a headwind

The base leg itself is positioned as needed for the altitude or wind condition — to conserve or dissipate altitude.

Teaching consequence: if a student flies a beautiful square pattern to a landing 600 feet short, they have executed a shape, not a maneuver. Grade the evaluation, not the geometry.

Not the numbers. Selection of the runway numbers as the touchdown point does not provide a safety cushion in case of a mechanical problem or misjudgment. Selecting a point farther down the runway establishes an increased safety margin (AFH ch. 9).

With a −0 tolerance, every point you choose has a hard floor under it, so choose one with runway underneath it. The obvious teaching pairing: a student who picks the numbers will eventually be tempted to stretch the glide, which is the error that turns a bad approach into an accident.

And the value judgment, stated in the AFH's own words for when the spot and the landing conflict: it is always better to execute a good landing away from the spot than to make a poor landing precisely on or just past the spot — and more generally, although accurate spot touchdowns are important, safe and properly executed approaches and landings are vital. A pilot should never sacrifice a good approach or landing just to land on the desired spot.

Nine (AFH ch. 9):

1. Downwind leg is too far from the runway/landing area
2. Overextension of downwind leg resulting from a tailwind
3. Inadequate compensation for wind drift on base leg
4. Skidding turns in an effort to increase gliding distance
5. Failure to lower landing gear in retractable gear airplanes
6. Attempting to "stretch" the glide during an undershoot
7. Premature flap extension/landing gear extension
8. Use of throttle to increase the glide instead of merely clearing the engine
9. Forcing the airplane onto the runway in order to avoid overshooting the designated landing spot

For teaching, sort them by what you do about them rather than by the order the handbook prints them:

• Errors you correct in the debrief (1, 2, 3, 7) — pattern geometry and premature configuration. These produce a short landing and a −0 bust, not a hazard. Let the approach run, let the student see the result, then fix the geometry on the whiteboard where it's cheap
• Errors you name in the moment (5, 8) — gear, and creeping the throttle. One word, said once, while it still matters
• Errors you take the controls for (4, 6, 9) — these are the ones that hurt. A skidding turn at pattern altitude with the engine at idle is the classic stall/spin setup; stretching the glide is the same accident approached from the other side; forcing it on is how a spot-fixated student produces a porpoise with no power available to fix it

That third group is your intervention list, and it's worth briefing as one: "If I see you skid the turn, trade altitude for the spot, or push it onto the runway, I'm taking the airplane." Say it before the first attempt. A student who knows which three errors end the exercise flies the other six more honestly, because they stop treating the spot as the only thing being graded.

Not as a rule — as a demonstration, at altitude, where the student feels the airplane's answer.

Set up a glide at best glide speed toward a reference on the ground, let them see the aiming point walk up the windscreen (undershooting), then have them do exactly what they will want to do in the pattern: pull. What they see is the AFH's statement made physical — if the airspeed is below best glide, pitching up reduces the airspeed and greatly steepens the descent angle, and if the pitch attitude is raised too high the airplane settles rapidly due to slow airspeed and insufficient lift (AFH ch. 9).

Then give them the correct correction and let them prove it works: when the airspeed is too low, lower the nose.

Do this before the first pattern attempt, under primacy — make sure the learner gets it right the first time (AIH ch. 9). A student who has felt a pull produce a faster descent will not reach for the yoke on short final, and no amount of telling produces that.

The companion demonstration is the skidding turn (common error 4): show the recognition, not the departure, and connect it to the same impulse — trying to make the airplane cover ground it does not have the energy to cover.

One sentence: at the moment the throttle closes at the abeam point, the energy account is closed to deposits.

From there the total energy — altitude plus airspeed — can only be spent (drag) or redistributed (altitude traded for speed and back). The whole maneuver is a single question, asked continuously: do I have more energy than I need to reach the spot, or less?

• More than enough is manageable — flaps, a slip, S-turns, a wider base, a dog-leg away all convert surplus into drag (AFH ch. 9)
• Less than enough is unrecoverable. No configuration change adds energy, and the throttle is only for clearing the engine, not for increasing the glide (AFH ch. 9, common error 8)

Which yields the strategy the AFH endorses: fly it deliberately slightly energy-rich — if the approach is planned to be slightly high in the current configuration, the pilot will be assured of making the aiming point — and spend the surplus late.

Put this in the explanation phase on the ground, where the AIH says to cover the precise actions the learner will perform and the end result of those efforts (AIH ch. 9). A student who owns the energy frame will make sensible in-flight decisions you never briefed.

From the crab angle, which is free information they are already generating. The pilot can determine the strength and direction of the wind from the amount of crab necessary to hold the desired ground track on the base leg. This helps in planning the turn onto the final approach and provides some indication of when to lower the flaps (AFH ch. 9).

Then apply it to the geometry:

• Strong headwind on final — a tighter, closer-in base and later flaps; you may also increase airspeed slightly above best glide in a headwind to preserve glide distance over the ground
• Tailwind on downwind — the classic setup for overextension of the downwind leg (common error 2). Coach the abeam-point discipline and a prompt turn
• Wind drift on base — inadequate compensation for wind drift on base leg (common error 3) is what produces the overshoot that produces the skid

Make the student say the wind out loud on base — "quartering headwind, maybe ten, I'll keep the base tight and hold flaps" — before you let them act on it. That converts an intuition into a testable statement you can grade in the debrief.

The maneuver spends its whole life at low altitude with the engine at idle, so the plan has to be explicit:

• A hard floor for corrective maneuvering. Below it, the approach is what it is; you land it or you go around, but you do not S-turn or steepen at 200 feet.
• A coordination rule with teeth. Skidding turns in an effort to increase gliding distance is common error 4 and the stall/spin setup. Brief a bank limit for the base-to-final turn and treat bottom rudder as an immediate takeover trigger.
• A "forcing it on" trigger. Forcing the airplane onto the runway in order to avoid overshooting the designated landing spot (common error 9) produces exactly the nose-first arrival that starts a porpoise — the improper airplane attitude at touchdown may be caused by inattention, not knowing where the ground is, mis-trimming, or forcing the airplane onto the runway (AFH ch. 9). If the student is pushing to make the spot, take the airplane or call the go-around.
• The slip hazards (AI.VII.O.R7), which the ACS names as fuel flowage, tail stalls with flaps, and airspeed control:
  • Fuel flowage — some airplanes limit slips in duration or by fuel quantity, to preclude fuel starvation caused when fuel is forced to one side of a tank in uncoordinated flight (AFH ch. 9). On this Task the engine is at idle by design, so a fuel interruption is invisible until you need power
  • Tail stalls with flaps — the AFH gives only the limitation (for aerodynamic reasons there may also be recommendations or limitations related to slips with flaps extended), not the mechanism. The mechanism: the tailplane's job is providing a downward force to counteract the wing's nose-down moment, so deployment of flaps or increasing speed may increase the negative AOA of the tail (IFH ch. 4) — put another way, flap extension increases the AOA of the horizontal stabilizer (AFH ch. 13). If the tail reaches its own critical angle it stalls, the download disappears, and the aircraft nose pitches down; recovery is retract the flaps to the previous setting and apply appropriate nose-up elevator pressure, not back pressure alone. On this Task the exposure is real, because a student correcting a high approach reaches for both the slip and the flaps
  • Airspeed control — considerable airspeed indicator error in a slip, which means recognizing the slip by attitude, sound of the airflow, and feel of the controls (AFH ch. 9). With the engine at idle and no ability to add energy, a slip flown to a false airspeed is the setup for the stretch
• Wake turbulence (AI.VII.O.R2d) — a listed risk, and the one the pattern geometry makes worst: you are gliding, so you cannot power out of a wake encounter, and the maneuver puts you low and inside the flightpath of anything ahead. This is resolved on downwind by spacing, before the throttle closes
• LAHSO (AI.VII.O.R3b) — the ACS lists it here too, and the conflict is stark: a power-off 180 is flown to a −0 / +200 foot box with no ability to add energy, while a hold-short clearance demands knowing the landing distance available and stopping within it (PHAK ch. 14). You hold the final authority to accept or decline any LAHSO clearance — teach declining it during this maneuver, every time. (Full LAHSO treatment in Task VII.B.)
• The go-around paradox. Appendix 3 makes a tolerance-driven go-around unsatisfactory on the checkride, but the applicant and evaluator must not sacrifice the safety of flight and force a landing. In training, resolve it the easy way: go around freely and debrief the cause. The discipline that prevents checkride go-arounds is built by flying the entry the same way every time, not by pressing bad approaches.

Then the exchange, briefed before engine start: "I have the flight controls" (AIH ch. 9).

It applies to a narrow class of airplanes but it is worth knowing because it is the kind of "why is that in the ACS" question that separates a memorized maneuver from an understood one.

Certain single-engine turboprop airplanes experience an excessive rate of descent if the power is set to flight idle. In some cases, if the powerplant failed, the manufacturer's checklist calls for feathering the propeller during a power-off glide. During flight training in these airplanes, the propeller is not feathered as would be the case in an emergency or true power-off glide. During training and pilot certification, where the manufacturer's checklist calls for propeller feathering in a power-off situation, the pilot should set sufficient power to provide the performance that would be expected with the propeller feathered (FAA-S-ACS-25 Appendix 3; AFH ch. 9).

The underlying principle generalizes to every trainer: the maneuver is meant to reproduce the glide performance of an actual engine failure. Flight idle in a fixed-pitch trainer is a reasonable approximation; in some airplanes it is not, and the fix is to set the power that makes it one — not to change the maneuver.

Use telling-and-doing, and lean on the middle step, which is the one this maneuver rewards most (AIH ch. 9):

1. Instructor tells — instructor does. Fly it with the narration in the same sequence you explained on the ground. Since learners generally imitate the instructor's performance, demonstrate the skill exactly the way learners are expected to practice it — including deliberately flying it slightly high and spending the surplus late, so they copy the right strategy.
2. Learner tells — instructor does. The student calls every decision while you fly: "close the throttle now," "hold altitude to 1.4 VSO," "we're high, dog-leg away," "flaps now — they won't make us short." In the process of explaining the maneuver as the instructor performs it, perceptions begin to develop into insights, and you find out whether they own the energy model before they are absorbed in controlling the airplane.
3. Learner tells — learner does. They narrate aloud while flying. This forces total concentration and lets you tell whether an error is induced by a misconception or by a simple lack of motor skills — which on this maneuver is the entire diagnostic question. A student who is consistently short because they turn base late has a different problem from one who is short because they stretch.

Vary the entry altitude and the geography deliberately, per the AFH's warning about fossilizing the base key position, and debrief with collaborative assessment — their self-assessment first, then yours (AIH ch. 9).