Teaching a technical subject: the shape, and principles of flight

What this lesson is for: phase 2 starts here, and so does the part where you teach. You already know principles of flight. That is exactly why it is the first subject: it takes the knowledge problem off the table so you can see the teaching problem clearly.

Seventeen lessons. Every one of them ends with you teaching the subject to a Simulated Student, not answering questions about it. Your instructor plays a student, in character, and will not tell you in advance what kind of student they are being.

Every one of them is recorded, and you read your own transcript before your instructor reviews it. standards/TECHNICAL-SUBJECT-LESSON-SHAPE.md explains the whole arrangement in two pages. Read it before this lesson.

Flying starts at lesson 10, two lessons from now.

Read:

• FAA-S-ACS-25, Area of Operation II, Task D. The task itself, not a summary.
• FAA-H-8083-25C, Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, the aerodynamics chapters, plus the October 2025 addendum.
• standards/TECHNICAL-SUBJECT-LESSON-SHAPE.md.

Deliverable: A one-page teaching outline for load factor in turns, aimed at a student with about 10 hours. Say what you would teach first, what you would leave out entirely, and one question you would ask to find out whether it landed.

The "leave out entirely" line is the hard one and it is the point of the exercise.

1. How phase 2 works.
2. Organizing a technical subject for somebody who does not know it.
3. Airfoil design characteristics.
4. The forces acting on an airplane.
5. Stability, maneuverability, and controllability.
6. Turning tendency: torque, p-factor, spiraling slipstream, gyroscopic precession.
7. Load factors in airplane design.
8. Wingtip vortices, and the precautions that follow from them.
9. You teach.

• Teach an element assigned at the start of the lesson, for about ten minutes, without notes.
• Answer "why" twice on the same point.
• Say out loud where you simplified something, and what the simplification costs.
• Send your student to a real publication at least once.

1. You teach an assigned element of principles of flight to the Simulated Student for about ten minutes, without notes in front of you.
2. You answer "why" twice on the same point, going one level deeper each time rather than restating what you already said.
3. You name one simplification you made and say what it costs and when it would need correcting.
4. You direct the Simulated Student to a live publication at least once, rather than asserting a fact from memory.
5. You prioritize within the turning tendencies, teaching the one that matters most at your student's stage rather than all four equally.
6. You deliver a self-critique before hearing your instructor's.

• Teaching everything you know. This is the defining error of phase 2 and it happens because you know the subject well. A 10 hour student does not need all four turning tendencies today.
• Reaching for equations when asked "why". Going deeper is not the same as going more mathematical. Usually it means going more physical.
• Bernoulli, delivered as the whole story. It is a simplification. Knowing that you made one is standard 3.
• Drawing a beautiful diagram and going quiet. The diagram is a prop, not the lesson.
• Quoting a number from memory. Send them to the book. In this program you will never reproduce a performance number from a flight manual, and the habit starts here.
• Hearing "why" as a challenge. It is a student learning. It is the best thing that can happen in your lesson.

Not applicable. Ground lesson. Lesson 10 is your first flight, and it is the right-seat introduction.

This lesson has no Video Slots.