Instructor responsibilities, professionalism, and exposure

The candidate can state, for any element of what they teach, whether it is regulation or North Aero policy, and can say what their signature in a logbook actually commits them to.

This lesson closes the P2 familiarity-blindness gap. A candidate trained here from private through commercial has never had to explain North Aero's methods to an outsider and may not know where school procedure ends and regulation begins. An examiner will ask, and "that's how we do it" is the wrong answer whichever kind of thing it is.

Element 7 is concrete and gets skipped. 61.189, read live 2026-08-13, requires a flight instructor to sign the logbook of each person given flight or ground training, to maintain a record of everyone endorsed for solo and everyone endorsed for a knowledge or practical test with the kind of test, the date, and the result, and to retain those records for at least 3 years. Most new instructors do not know about the separate record or the 3 year retention until someone asks for it.

Element 8 has a trap worth teaching. 61.197(a), read live 2026-08-13, allows a person to exercise flight instructor privileges only if within the preceding 24 calendar months they have satisfied one of the recent experience requirements. 61.1(b)'s definition of authorized instructor is conditioned on compliance with 61.197. A lapsed instructor is not an authorized instructor, which means their endorsements are not endorsements.

Instructor: FAA-H-8083-9B ch 8. FAA-S-ACS-25 at FI.I.E and AI.II.J. Live access to eCFR, not a printed copy. Element 9 is about finding the current answer, and teaching it from a printout undercuts it.

Candidate: preparation deliverable, a device that can reach eCFR.

Room: Meet running, separate devices, headsets.

1. Teach elements 1 to 9. On elements 6 to 8, open the regulation on screen and read it rather than paraphrasing. Cross-cutting requirement 4 applies to you as well as to the documents.
2. Element 10, and this is the heart of the lesson. Give the candidate a list of six to eight things North Aero does, mixed, and have them sort each into regulation, North Aero policy, or both. Include at least two they will get wrong. Good candidates for the list: the 3 year record retention, the school's preferred pattern altitude, the requirement to sign a logbook after ground training, the school's fuel reserve minimum, the 8 hours of flight training in 24 hours limit, and the school's own rule on when a lesson is recorded.
3. Do not tell them the answers. Have them find each in eCFR or fail to find it, which is the point.
4. Simulated Student role, element 12. A student who asks "why do we do it that way?" about a North Aero procedure. Then ask "is that a rule?"
5. Critique against standards/CRITIQUE-STANDARD.md.

1. Arrive with the deliverable.
2. Sort the mixed list into regulation, school policy, or both, citing the regulation where one exists.
3. Teach an assigned element, flagging as they go which parts are regulatory.
4. Answer "is that a rule?" correctly, including saying "I don't know, let me find it" when true.
5. Self-critique first.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate sorts a mixed list of at least six items into regulation, North Aero policy, or both, and cites the specific section for each item they classify as regulation.
2. For any item they get wrong, the candidate finds the correct answer in the live regulation during the lesson rather than being told it.
3. The candidate teaches an assigned element and flags, during the teaching, which parts are regulatory and which are school policy, without being prompted.
4. The candidate states what records 61.189 requires them to keep and for how long, from the regulation.
5. The candidate states what happens to their endorsements if their own certificate lapses under 61.197.
6. The candidate responds to "is that a rule?" with either a citation or an honest "I need to look that up", and never with a guess presented as fact.
7. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's.

Not applicable. Ground lesson.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-H-8083-9B, chapter 8, Aviation Instructor Responsibilities and Professionalism.
• FAA-S-ACS-25, Area of Operation I, Task E, and Area of Operation II, Task J.
• From live eCFR, not a printed copy: 61.189, 61.193, 61.195, 61.197, 61.199.
• standards/DELIVERY-CAPABILITY.md, which is the same regulation applied to the people teaching you.

Deliverable: Five things North Aero does that you have been taught to do. For each, write down whether you believe it is regulation or school policy, and if you say regulation, the section. Do not look them up first. Bring your unchecked answers. Being wrong in writing is the useful part.

Available and used: the 2026-07-29 power-off stalls lesson. Use it for element 7. That lesson was ground training given by an authorized instructor. Ask the candidate what 61.189(a) required of the instructor afterwards, what 61.51(b) required in the logbook entry, and who was the authorized instructor in a lesson where the candidate was doing the talking. The answer, that the Supervising Instructor's presence throughout is what makes the time loggable, is the whole basis of US-12.5 and worth arriving at rather than being told.

Needed and not yet available: a real North Aero standard operating procedure document, so element 10's sort list is drawn from the school's actual written procedures rather than assembled by the instructor each time. Owner: Erick. Until supplied, the instructor builds the list, and should keep the same list across candidates so the lesson is consistent.

None. This lesson teaches no maneuver.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not its Video Slots are filled. It has none.

Standard 6 is the one that matters in five years. A candidate who will say "I need to look that up" is safe. One who guesses fluently is not, and fluency makes it hard to spot. Watch for a confident wrong citation and treat it as a serious finding rather than a minor error.

The teaching in element 12 is assessed on the flagging, not on the content. They already know the content.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-3.4, US-2.3
• ✓Carries ACS tasks and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior
• ✓Common errors listed, including the memorize-the-list failure mode
• ✓Intervention threshold: not applicable, ground lesson, reason given
• ✓Student preparation named, in the student half
• ✓FAA references verified current, 2026-08-13, against live eCFR
• ✓Passes the design system check
• ✓Appears in the program structure and coverage matrix, hours reconciling
• ✓Both halves exist
• ✓Video Slots: none, and the lesson says so
• ✓Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
• ✓No em dashes, no POH performance numbers, no pricing
• ✓Distinguishes regulation from school policy explicitly. US-3.4's second acceptance criterion, and the point of element 10
• Real North Aero standard operating procedure document for element 10's sort list. Open. Owner: Erick