Endorsements and logbook entries

The candidate drafts the endorsements they will need in their first month as an instructor, checked against the current source, so that their first solo endorsement is not their first attempt at one.

They also learn what to do when an endorsement turns out to be wrong after the fact, which is the part nobody teaches and everybody eventually needs.

Element 9 is the lesson. The candidate writes them. They do not read a sample and agree that it looks right.

The current source for endorsement wording is the FAA's own endorsement guidance, and the candidate finds it rather than being handed a photocopy. That is US-4.2 and US-4.3's "current source" requirement working together.

An endorsement that is wrong after the fact is not a hypothetical. Three cases, in increasing seriousness:

1. Wrong date or a transcription error, caught before the student flies. Line through, initial, correct, and re-date. Do not erase, and do not remove the page.
2. Wrong or missing content, caught after the student has flown on it. The flight has happened. Correct the endorsement going forward, record what happened and when it was noticed, and tell the student. The correction is dated when it is made, not backdated. Backdating an endorsement is falsifying a record.
3. An endorsement given to a student who did not meet the requirement. Stop. The student does not fly on it again. Tell your chief instructor the same day. This is a training and a records problem at once, and the instinct to quietly fix it is exactly the wrong one.

The rule underneath all three: never backdate, never erase, always tell somebody.

Instructor: live eCFR. The FAA's current endorsement guidance, located live rather than from a stored copy. A blank logbook or endorsement sheets. FAA-S-ACS-25 at AI.II.K.

Candidate: preparation deliverable, something to write endorsements on, a device that reaches eCFR.

Taught Ground Lesson: yes Meeting title convention: CFI Ground Lesson - L22 Endorsements and Logbook Entries - <YYYY-MM-DD> Participants: each on their own device, headset, Workspace account Candidate reads their own Session Transcript before the instructor's review Coverage maps to: AI.II.K Fallback if capture fails: instructor attests from contemporaneous notes; the lesson is not lost and is not re-taught for the sake of a recording

1. Teach elements 1 to 8 briskly. The drafting is where the time goes.
2. Element 9: the candidate hand-writes at least four endorsements. Pre-solo, solo, solo cross-country, and one other. From the current source, looked up in the lesson.
3. Check each draft against the current source, with the candidate, and date the check. US-4.3 requires the check to be dated.
4. Simulated Student role. A student asking to be signed off for something they are not quite ready for. Be likeable about it.
5. Teach element 10 as the three cases above.
6. Critique against standards/CRITIQUE-STANDARD.md.

1. Arrive with the deliverable.
2. Draft at least four endorsements, by hand, from the current source.
3. Decline the not-quite-ready student without damaging the relationship.
4. State what they would do in each of the three wrong-endorsement cases.
5. Self-critique first.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate drafts at least four endorsements by hand, from the current source located during the lesson, with content that matches the source.
2. Each draft is checked against the current source and the check is dated.
3. The candidate declines to endorse the not-ready student, states the specific standard not yet met, and says what would close it.
4. The candidate states what they would do in each of the three wrong-after-the-fact cases, including that a correction is dated when made and never backdated.
5. The candidate states what records 61.189(b) requires them to keep, and for how long.
6. The candidate identifies one North Aero endorsement policy stricter than the regulation.
7. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's.

Not applicable. Ground lesson.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-S-ACS-25, Area of Operation II, Task K.
• From live eCFR: 61.51, 61.87, 61.89, 61.93, 61.189, 61.56.
• Find the FAA's current endorsement guidance yourself, and note where you found it and its date. Do not use a copy somebody gave you.

Deliverable: Draft, by hand, a pre-solo endorsement and a solo cross-country endorsement for an imaginary student. Bring them, plus the citation for where you got the required content and the date you looked it up. We will check them together.

Second deliverable. Write the ground lesson you would teach on endorsements and logbook entries, to the template in standards/LESSON-PLAN-TEMPLATE.md, in your own words. This is one of your seventeen P3 plans, covering the endorsements and logbook entries cluster. Bring it on paper.

The endorsements above are the artifact. The plan is how you teach a student to check currency rather than to copy a form.

Used: the three wrong-after-the-fact cases above, worked in full.

Needed and not yet available: an anonymized real North Aero endorsement that had to be corrected, and what was done. Owner: Erick. Until supplied, the three cases above carry the element.

None. This lesson teaches no maneuver.

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

Standard 3 is the one that matters most and it is a character test as much as a knowledge test. Play the not-ready student as genuinely likeable and genuinely keen, because that is how the real version arrives. A candidate who folds here will fold later, and it is much cheaper to find out now.

Keep the drafted endorsements. They go into the candidate's own reference set and they will use them.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-4.3, US-4.1, US-3.4
• ✓Carries ACS tasks and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior; the candidate drafts each endorsement
• ✓Drafts are checked against the current source, with the check dated (US-4.3)
• ✓Covers what to do when an endorsement is wrong after the fact (US-4.3)
• ✓Common errors listed
• ✓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
• ✓Regulation distinguished from school policy explicitly (US-3.4)
• ✓Carries the Epic 12 capture hooks