Flight Instructor Program · policy
Ticket: 31. Knowledge test deficiency closure process
Story: US-7.3
Gate: Phase 2
Issued: 2026-08-13
Your knowledge test report lists a subject code for every question you missed. Each one gets mapped to the lesson that closes it, worked through during training, and recorded as closed before you are recommended for the practical test.
The reason is simple: the examiner has your test report. Anything you missed is fair game on the oral, and an examiner is entitled to expect that your instructor already dealt with it.
This applies to both knowledge tests, the fundamentals of instructing test after lesson 7 and the flight instructor airplane test after lesson 24.
Open deficiency codes do not block progression through the lessons. Decision 9 removed the proficiency gate from this program and this process does not reintroduce one.
What closure does gate is the practical test recommendation. That is the one place it is a hard condition, and it is the same place US-8.1 requires every applicable ACS area to be PROFICIENT.
The distinction matters in practice: a candidate with four open codes carries on through phase 3 normally, working the codes in as they go. They do not sit still until the codes are closed.
When the test report arrives, the Supervising Instructor logs every missed subject code into the candidate's training file, using the table below. Same week, not eventually. A report that sits in a bag until phase 4 is how codes get closed in a rush the night before a checkride.
Each code maps to the specific lesson or lessons that close it. See the mapping section below.
The lesson that closes a code is normally one the candidate has already had. Closure usually means a focused re-visit inside another lesson rather than a repeated lesson: fifteen minutes at the top of a ground lesson, or a specific teaching assignment on that subject.
Where the code maps to a lesson the candidate has not reached yet, it is closed when they reach it, and the log records that it is scheduled rather than open-and-unaddressed.
A code is closed when a named instructor says it is closed, on a recorded date. Cross-cutting requirement 9. No tool closes a code, and Coverage does not close a code. Coverage says a topic was raised; closure is a judgment that the candidate now knows it.
The standard for closure is the same as everywhere else in this program: the candidate can teach it. Not that they can now answer the question they missed. If a candidate can teach the subject to a Simulated Student, the code is closed.
At lesson 42, every code is confirmed closed before the practical test recommendation is written. An open code at that point is a finding, not a formality.
Kept in the candidate's training file. One row per missed code.
| Code | Subject | From which test | Logged on | Maps to lesson | Closed by | Closed on | Evidence |
|---|
Evidence is one line: what the candidate did that satisfied the instructor. "Taught airspace entry requirements to the Simulated Student on 2026-09-14" is evidence. "Discussed" is not.
Deficiency codes name a knowledge area. Map the area to the lesson that owns it.
| Knowledge area | Closes at lesson |
|---|---|
| The learning process | 02 |
| Elements of effective teaching | 05, 06 |
| Student evaluation and testing | 04 |
| Course development | 03 |
| Lesson planning | 03 |
| Classroom training techniques | 03 |
| Human behavior and communication | 01 |
| Subject area | Closes at lesson |
|---|---|
| Principles of flight, aerodynamics | 08 |
| Pilot qualifications, certificates, medicals | 09 |
| 14 CFR and publications | 09 |
| Airspace | 11 |
| Airworthiness, inspections, inoperative equipment | 12 |
| Aircraft systems | 14 |
| Performance, limitations, weight and balance | 15 |
| Aeromedical and human factors | 16 |
| Visual scanning, collision avoidance, runway incursion | 17 |
| Night operations, high altitude, oxygen | 18 |
| Navigation systems, radar services | 19 |
| Navigation and cross-country planning | 20 |
| Weather | 21 |
| Endorsements and logbook entries | 22 |
| Maneuvers, procedures, and their instruction | The phase 3 lesson that owns that maneuver |
| Emergency operations | 38 |
| Stalls, spins, slow flight | 30, 31, 32, 33 |
If a missed code cannot be mapped to a lesson, that is surfaced as a curriculum gap rather than absorbed.
This is an objective O4 signal and it is the most valuable thing this process produces. The test is built from the same body of knowledge the ACS describes, so a code with no home means one of three things:
Do not quietly assign an unmappable code to the nearest lesson. That hides exactly the signal this process exists to produce. Write "no mapping" in the log, raise it, and let it be visible.
At the readiness check, before they sit either test:
Your test report will list a code for everything you miss. We log those, work each one back into your training, and confirm they are closed before you are recommended for the practical test. The examiner will have that report and may ask about anything on it.
Missing questions is normal. Leaving them unaddressed is what causes trouble on the oral.
