Flight Instructor Program · program
Ticket: 06. Materials list and pacing scenarios
Story: US-2.2
Gate: Enrollment
Editions checked against live FAA sources: 2026-08-13
Issued: 2026-08-13
Every FAA document on this list is free to download from faa.gov, and the regulations are free from ecfr.gov. Nothing here has to be bought as paper. Buy paper where paper helps you, which for most candidates means the two handbooks you will live in and nothing else.
Editions matter more in this program than in your last one. You are about to start teaching from these documents, and a candidate who teaches from a superseded edition teaches something that is no longer true. Every edition below was confirmed against the live FAA source on 2026-08-13. sources/FAA-SOURCES.md records how, and per cross-cutting requirement 4 that check is repeated on the day any artifact citing these is issued. Check the edition again on the day you download.
Several handbooks now carry a separate addendum. An addendum is not optional reading. Where one exists it is listed, and the handbook plus its addendum is one item, not two.
You need all of these to do the program.
| Item | Designator | Edition confirmed 2026-08-13 | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flight Instructor for Airplane Category Airman Certification Standards | FAA-S-ACS-25 | Effective May 31, 2024. Cover prints November 2023. No change document | Every lesson. This is the document the practical test is built from |
| Aviation Instructor's Handbook | FAA-H-8083-9B | 2020 | Phase 1 in full, and the critique standard |
| Airplane Flying Handbook | FAA-H-8083-3C | 2021, plus its addendum dated October 2025 | Phase 3 in full |
| Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge | FAA-H-8083-25C | 2023, plus its addendum dated October 2025 | Phase 2 in full |
| 14 CFR part 61 | Current text at eCFR | Title 14 up to date as of 2026-08-11 | Lessons 5, 9, 22, and the checkride document checklist |
| 14 CFR part 91 | Current text at eCFR | Title 14 up to date as of 2026-08-11 | Lessons 11, 12, 18 |
| Aeronautical Information Manual | Current edition | Confirm at download | Lessons 11, 17, 19 |
| The approved flight manual for the airplane you instruct in | POH or AFM for that specific airframe | The one in that airplane | Lessons 14, 15, and every phase 3 lesson |
| A current sectional chart and terminal area chart for this area | Current cycle | Confirm at download | Lessons 11, 19, 20 |
| Chart Supplement for this region | Current cycle | Confirm at download | Lessons 11, 20 |
| North Aero lesson plans and study guides | This program | Issued to you per lesson | Every lesson |
| Your own written lesson plans | You write these | Lesson 3 onward | See the minimum plan set in standards/LESSON-PLAN-TEMPLATE.md |
On the flight manual, and this is a rule rather than a preference. Per cross-cutting requirement 5, no artifact in this program reproduces performance numbers from a POH or AFM. Lessons direct you to the specific airplane's own approved material, because that is where the numbers that apply to that airplane live, and because a number copied into a lesson goes stale without anyone noticing. Teaching performance from a handout rather than from the book in the airplane is a habit worth not forming.
Useful, drawn on by specific lessons, not needed on day one.
| Item | Designator | Edition confirmed 2026-08-13 | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Risk Management Handbook | FAA-H-8083-2A | 2022 | Lesson 6, and the risk management thread through phase 3 |
| Weight and Balance Handbook | FAA-H-8083-1B | 2016, plus its addendum dated October 2025 | Lesson 15 |
| Stall and Spin Awareness Training | AC 61-67C | Dated 9/25/00. The copy served on 2026-08-13 showed no change number on its cover | Lessons 30, 31, 32, 33 |
| Airman Certification Standards Companion Guide for Pilots | FAA-G-ACS-2 | Named in the FAA-S-ACS-25 foreword | Understanding how the ACS is meant to be used |
| Your own logbook and training records | Yours | Current | Lessons 22, 39, and the recommendation |
On AC 61-67C. The FAA advisory circular search page is script-driven and does not answer a plain fetch, so the revision letter above comes from the document library copy rather than from the AC index. Confirm the current revision on the day you use it in a deliverable. It is the reference the ACS itself names for AI.X.B and AI.X.I, so it matters for the spin ground lesson.
Produced by the school, issued to you, not for redistribution.
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| The program structure | program/PROGRAM-STRUCTURE.md. Your map |
| The ACS coverage matrix | program/COVERAGE-MATRIX.md. Your readiness view |
| The critique and assessment standard | standards/CRITIQUE-STANDARD.md. One standard, applied everywhere |
| The lesson plan template | standards/LESSON-PLAN-TEMPLATE.md. The shape your own plans are written to |
| Per-lesson study guides | The student-facing half of every lesson |
| Clips | Curated video of real North Aero students flying maneuvers, on domain-restricted Vimeo. Not all Video Slots are filled yet, and a lesson is deliverable with an empty slot |
policy/KNOWLEDGE-TESTS.md as a category rather than a product, because a recommendation here would go stale faster than this document is revised.