Flight Instructor Program · policy
Ticket: 16. Knowledge test sequence and validity statement
Story: US-7.1
Gate: Enrollment
Regulation verified against live eCFR: 2026-08-13, title 14 up to date as of 2026-08-11
Issued: 2026-08-13
Two, and both are prerequisites for the practical test.
| Test | Regulatory basis | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamentals of instructing | 61.183(e), on the areas listed in 61.185(a)(1) | The learning process, elements of effective teaching, student evaluation and testing, course development, lesson planning, and classroom training techniques |
| Flight instructor airplane | 61.183(f), on the areas listed in 61.185(a)(2) and (a)(3) | The aeronautical knowledge areas for recreational, private, and commercial pilot certificates applicable to the airplane category |
The six subjects listed for the fundamentals of instructing test above are 61.185(a)(1)'s own list, read from live eCFR on 2026-08-13. They are also, not by coincidence, the shape of phase 1.
| Test | Take it after | Why there |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamentals of instructing | Lesson 7 | Phase 1 is the entire body of material for this test. You will never know it better than the week you finish phase 1, and phase 2 will crowd it out |
| Flight instructor airplane | Lesson 24 | Phase 2 covers the technical subject areas this test draws on. Taking it at the end of phase 2 means phase 3 is flying and teaching rather than studying |
This matches program/PROGRAM-STRUCTURE.md, parameter P6, and the two documents are expected to agree. If they ever disagree, the program structure is the one that gets corrected, because it is the map everything else hangs off.
Neither test is prepared for separately. US-7.2 is explicit about this: the FOI phase prepares you for the FOI test as a by-product, so that you are not studying two bodies of material. If you find yourself doing test prep alongside the lessons rather than through them, say so, because that means a lesson is not doing its job.
Under 61.183(e), verified against live eCFR on 2026-08-13, you do not need to pass that test if you:
Raise this at enrollment rather than after you have paid a test fee. A second-career candidate who taught school is exactly the case the second exemption exists for, and it is the kind of thing nobody thinks to mention because it has nothing to do with flying.
The exemption is from the test, not from the training. 61.185(a)(1) still requires you to receive and log ground training on the fundamentals of instructing, and 61.183(d) still requires the logbook endorsement. Phase 1 happens either way. What changes is whether you sit at a testing center at the end of it.
24 calendar months. Under 61.39(a)(1)(i), verified against live eCFR on 2026-08-13, you must have passed the required knowledge test within the 24-calendar-month period preceding the month in which you complete the practical test.
Read that carefully, because it is a common misreading: the window is counted back from the month you complete the practical test, not from the month you apply, start training, or get recommended.
Does this program put you at risk of expiry? No, on any pace. Taking the fundamentals test after lesson 7 leaves lessons 8 through 42 inside the window, and the slowest scenario in program/PACING.md puts the whole program at about 13 months. Even a candidate who stopped entirely for six months would still be inside 24 months. The realistic expiry risk is not the pace, it is a candidate who took a test before enrolling here and then took a long break.
If you arrive holding a passed knowledge test, which a P4 transfer candidate often does, its expiry date is established on day one and recorded in your training file. That date, not the program calendar, then drives your checkride scheduling. See ticket 44's transfer credit mapping.
Re-verify on the day it matters. Per cross-cutting requirement 4, the validity rule above is re-checked against the live regulation on the day any artifact stating it is issued, and on the day a recommendation is written. The date on this document is 2026-08-13. 61.51 currently carries a pending amendment notice, which is a reminder that part 61 moves.
Knowledge tests are taken at an FAA-approved testing center, and the test fee is a cost you carry directly, paid to the testing center rather than to North Aero. There are two of them, unless you are exempt from the first.
A retest is an additional fee, and an additional endorsement. See policy/KNOWLEDGE-TESTS.md below on deficiency codes, and ticket 31 for how a deficiency is closed.
No figure appears here. Per Decision 15 and cross-cutting requirement 8, no price appears in this project. The enrollment project states test fees as part of the candidate-facing cost range, and this document is the record of the fact that they exist and are yours.
The same applies to test preparation material. A commercial question bank or test prep app is a category many candidates find useful and is a cost you carry. This document names the category rather than a product, because a specific recommendation would go stale faster than this page gets revised.
Your test report lists the subject codes for every question you missed. Those codes are closed during training, not ignored, and closure is recorded before the checkride recommendation. That process is ticket 31 and US-7.3. The examiner will ask about them.
Bring the original test report to the practical test. 61.39(a)(2) requires you to present it at the time of application. It is on the checkride document checklist for that reason.
