Maneuver teaching: the four-part cycle

The candidate runs the complete four-part maneuver teaching cycle on a maneuver they can already fly, so that the cycle itself is what is being learned rather than the maneuver. At the end they have taught the four fundamentals of flight from the right seat, corrected a Simulated Student flying them badly, and critiqued that flying to the standard.

The maneuver is deliberately easy. Everything in this lesson that is hard is the teaching.

Element 5 is the one to spend the extra minutes on. The candidate has been flying well since lesson 23. Watching somebody else fly badly, in an airplane they are responsible for, while producing one useful sentence at the right moment, is a genuinely new skill and it is uncomfortable the first time.

Ground 48 minutes, flight 90 minutes. Reconciles with the declared 0.8 ground and 1.5 dual.

Instructor: FAA-S-ACS-25 at Areas IV and VIII. standards/CRITIQUE-STANDARD.md, open on the table for part 4. The airplane. Notes from lesson 23. Cockpit recording equipment, per P7.

Candidate: headset, the flight manual for the airplane being flown, their written preflight ground lesson on the four fundamentals, a watch.

Airplane: normal category, dual controls, intercom that both seats can hear over.

Cockpit recording: required (parameter P7) Recording title convention: CFI Flight Lesson - L25 four-part cycle - <YYYY-MM-DD> What is recorded: the flight portion, parts 2 and 3 of the cycle Candidate critiques their own recording before the instructor's review Coverage maps to: AI.IV.A, AI.VIII.A, AI.VIII.B, AI.VIII.C, AI.VIII.D Retention: Review Video, 30 day Promotion Window, then deletion (ADR 0002) The written assessment is the record. The footage is not (Decision 37) Fallback if capture fails: instructor attests from contemporaneous notes; the lesson is not lost and is not re-flown for the sake of a recording

This is the baseline recording of the program. Lesson 38's recording is compared against it, so it is worth capturing even if the day is otherwise unremarkable.

A camera changes nothing about the intervention threshold below.

1. Teach the cycle once, cleanly, at the table. Eighteen minutes, and it is the last time it gets taught. From lesson 26 on, the candidate is expected to arrive knowing it.
2. Brief the exchange of controls, then use it all day. Three-way, out loud, both directions, from engine start.
3. Take the candidate's brief as a Student would. Sit in the Student's chair. Ask a Student's question, not an examiner's.
4. Grade the brief before the airplane. Against this lesson's completion standards, using the critique standard. Write it down. It counts whether or not the flight happens.
5. In part 2, be quiet. Let the demonstration be theirs, including its silences. Note where they went.
6. In part 3, fly it as a Student, from the script below. Left seat, in character, with the planned errors. Do not narrate your own errors and do not correct yourself.
7. Fly past the threshold once, and do not hand the airplane over. See the script. The candidate must take it, out loud.
8. In part 4, say nothing until they have. Critique of the Simulated Student first, then their own teaching, then yours.

Simulated Student script notes

Not in the study guide. Do not preview any of this.

The unoffered airplane is the point of the flight. If it does not happen, the lesson has not practiced US-5.4, only described it.

1. Teach the preflight ground lesson on the four fundamentals to the Simulated Student, all seven items, including the safety brief and the exchange of controls briefing.
2. Demonstrate the four fundamentals from the right seat while narrating, as for a first-time Student.
3. Talk the Simulated Student through the same four, correcting what goes wrong.
4. Take the airplane when the threshold is reached, out loud, three-way, whether or not it is offered.
5. Critique the Simulated Student's flying: error, probable cause, correction.
6. Self-critique their own teaching before hearing the instructor's.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate delivers the preflight ground lesson on the four fundamentals, covering all seven items of the brief including the safety brief and the exchange of controls briefing, and answers two Student questions without reading from notes.
2. The candidate flies the four fundamentals to commercial pilot tolerances from the right seat while narrating continuously, and does not go silent through any roll-in, level-off, or configuration change.
3. The candidate talks the Simulated Student through each of the four fundamentals, and names the cause rather than only the deviation on at least four of the errors flown.
4. The candidate takes the flight controls using the three-way exchange, out loud, in both directions, including at least once when the airplane was not offered.
5. The candidate delivers a critique of the Simulated Student's flying that names the error, its probable cause, and the correction, for at least two errors, per standards/CRITIQUE-STANDARD.md.
6. The candidate delivers a self-critique of their own teaching before hearing the instructor's.

Falling short does not block lesson 26. No proficiency gate (Decision 9). It triggers the visibility rule in policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md. This lesson is the baseline against which the rest of phase 3 is read, so a candidate who is at the edge here should be told so plainly and expected to work at it through lessons 26 and 27.

Verbatim in the study guide.

The instructor takes the airplane when:

• Airspeed reaches 1.2 Vs1 in any configuration without correction applied.
• Bank exceeds 60 degrees at any time.
• Altitude passes 1,500 ft AGL descending during an air work maneuver.
• Deviation below 300 ft AGL on approach not corrected within two seconds.
• The candidate is head-down inside the cockpit while a traffic conflict develops.
• Either pilot is unclear about who is flying the airplane.

Hard floor: all air work is terminated by 1,500 ft AGL. North Aero policy, not regulation (US-3.4). It is above the regulatory minimum on purpose, because the number has to survive being recalled by a busy candidate.

Positive exchange of controls, both directions, every time.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-S-ACS-25, Area of Operation IV, task AI.IV.A, in full. This is the task your brief is graded against.
• FAA-S-ACS-25, Area of Operation VIII, all four tasks.
• standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md, the four-part cycle and addition 2.
• FAA-H-8083-9B chapter 5, demonstration and performance.

Deliverable: Write the preflight ground lesson you will teach on the four fundamentals, to the template in standards/LESSON-PLAN-TEMPLATE.md, covering all seven items of the brief. Bring it on paper. This is one of your seventeen P3 plans, covering a fundamental of flight. Bring the tolerances written down, from the ACS, not from memory.

VS-25-1

Type: Exemplar | ACS task: AI.VIII.B | Status: empty What it should show: a level turn demonstrated from the right seat with continuous narration, the narration naming what to do rather than what the instruments read Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar

VS-25-2

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.VIII.B | Status: empty What it should show: a demonstration that goes silent through the roll-in and resumes once established, which is the error lesson 26 exists to fix Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

VS-25-3

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.VIII.C | Status: empty What it should show: a Student chasing airspeed with pitch in a climb, and an instructor correcting the deviation without ever naming the cause Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

Tagged by ACS task, not by lesson. These slots serve every lesson touching AI.VIII.B and AI.VIII.C.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not its Video Slots are filled.

Grade the brief and the flight separately, and record both. AI.IV.A is a task in its own right and this is the first time it is assessed. A candidate can pass the flying and fail the brief, and that is a real and reportable result rather than a rounding error.

What to watch for that does not appear in the standards. Where the candidate's eyes go while the Simulated Student is flying. A candidate watching the instruments is not yet instructing; a candidate watching outside and glancing in is. It is the single best early predictor of how lesson 26 will go, and it is worth naming at the debrief in exactly those terms.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated. Coverage for AI.IV.A and Area VIII proposed from the recording, confirmed by the instructor under US-12.5.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-5.2, US-5.4, US-12.2
• ✓Carries ACS tasks and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior, naming flying tolerance and teaching quality
• ✓Common errors listed, each with the instructor's response
• ✓Intervention threshold stated explicitly, with a hard floor
• ✓Student preparation named, in the student half
• ✓FAA references verified current, 2026-08-13
• ✓Passes the design system check
• ✓Appears in the program structure and coverage matrix, hours reconciling
• ✓Both halves exist
• ✓Video Slots named and ACS-tagged, and the lesson states it is deliverable with them empty
• ✓Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
• ✓No em dashes, no POH performance numbers, no pricing
• ✓Falling short does not block progression (Decision 9)
• ✓Runs the four-part cycle from standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md
• ✓Positive exchange of controls practiced, including from an airplane not offered