Chandelles, lazy eights, and eights on pylons

The candidate teaches the three commercial performance maneuvers from the right seat: chandelles, lazy eights, and eights on pylons. At the end they can name what each maneuver is actually training, fly all three to commercial tolerance while narrating, and diagnose the specific way each one goes wrong.

This is the hardest flying in the program and the lesson most likely to need a second attempt. Say that to the candidate in advance rather than discovering it together. A P3 second-career candidate whose commercial checkride was years ago will have decayed most on exactly these three, and that is a US-5.7 case rather than a problem.

A candidate who can only describe the procedure will teach the procedure. The point of each maneuver is what makes it worth a Student's money.

Element 8 is not filler. This is the lesson where a candidate is most likely to be teaching something they have not fully rebuilt. That is a real instructing situation and it has a correct handling: teach what you know, demonstrate honestly, and do not narrate confidence you do not have. A Student can tell, and the professional answer is to say "watch this one, I am going to talk you through what I am correcting" rather than to bluff.

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

Three maneuvers in ninety minutes is tight and it is meant to be. If the flight only gets through two, record which two, and fly the third at the start of the next lesson rather than compressing all three. A rushed lazy eight teaches a Student that the maneuver is a shape rather than a skill.

Instructor: FAA-S-ACS-25 at Areas IV and IX. FAA-H-8083-3C. The airplane. Two suitable pylons identified in advance, with the practice area's terrain and the wind considered.

Candidate: headset, the flight manual for the airplane being flown, their written preflight ground lesson, the pivotal altitude worked out for the expected groundspeeds, on paper.

Airplane: normal category, dual controls. Weight and balance matter more here than anywhere else in the phase, and the candidate does the calculation from the airplane's own material.

Cockpit recording: optional. Not one of the four P7 lessons. This is the strongest candidate among the optional lessons for recording anyway, because lazy eight symmetry is far easier to discuss from a recording than from memory.

1. Have the candidate work pivotal altitude in front of you, from the groundspeeds expected today, not from a remembered number. It changes with groundspeed and therefore changes around the turn, which is the whole idea.
2. Take the brief as a Student. Ask the question every commercial student asks about lazy eights: "what am I actually aiming at?"
3. Grade the brief before the airplane.
4. Brief both floors. This lesson has two, because the pylon work is flown low and the other two are not.
5. In part 2, expect the demonstrations to be imperfect and grade the narration honestly against the flying. A candidate who narrates a lazy eight as though it were going well while it is not has failed standard 5, and it is a more important finding than the flying.
6. In part 3, fly the script errors. They are specific to each maneuver.
7. Watch the airspeed at the top of the lazy eight and at the completion of the chandelle. Both are slow, both are where a Student's instinct is unhelpful, and both are threshold items.
8. Part 4, candidate first. Be generous about the flying and strict about the teaching.

Simulated Student script notes

Not in the study guide.

1. Teach the preflight ground lesson on chandelles, lazy eights, and eights on pylons.
2. Demonstrate chandelles in both directions from the right seat, narrating throughout.
3. Demonstrate lazy eights, narrating throughout.
4. Demonstrate eights on pylons at the correct pivotal altitude, narrating throughout.
5. Talk the Simulated Student through each of the three.
6. Take the airplane at the threshold, out loud, three-way.
7. Critique, self-critique, then listen.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate delivers the preflight ground lesson on the three commercial performance maneuvers, covering all seven items of the brief, and states for each maneuver what skill it is training rather than only how it is flown.
2. The candidate derives pivotal altitude from groundspeed in front of the instructor, and explains in one sentence why it changes during the maneuver.
3. The candidate flies chandelles in both directions, lazy eights, and eights on pylons to commercial pilot tolerances from the right seat while narrating continuously, with no silence longer than five seconds.
4. The candidate talks the Simulated Student through a pylon correction, directing a pitch change rather than a bank change, and names altitude as the reason.
5. The candidate narrates their own demonstrations honestly, naming a correction they are making as they make it rather than describing the maneuver as though it were going to plan.
6. The candidate names the symmetry of the lazy eight as the diagnostic, telling the Simulated Student what the second half reveals about the first.
7. 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.
8. The candidate delivers a critique naming the error, its probable cause, and the correction for at least two of the errors flown.
9. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's.

Standard 5 is unusual and it is deliberate. This is the one lesson in the phase where the candidate is likely to be demonstrating something they are still rebuilding, and the honest handling of that is a teaching skill worth assessing directly.

Falling short does not block lesson 30. No proficiency gate (Decision 9). It triggers policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md, and this is the single most likely lesson in the program to trigger it. Repeating this lesson is normal and is not a mark against the candidate.

Verbatim in the study guide.

The instructor takes the airplane when:

• Airspeed reaches 1.2 Vs1 at the completion of a chandelle or at the top of a lazy eight without correction applied.
• Bank exceeds 60 degrees at any time.
• Yaw is uncorrected through a full chandelle.
• Altitude passes 1,500 ft AGL descending during chandelles or lazy eights.
• Altitude passes 500 ft AGL descending during eights on pylons.
• Neither pilot has looked away from the pylon for a full circuit.
• Either pilot is unclear about who is flying the airplane.

Two hard floors, because this lesson flies at two altitudes. 1,500 ft AGL for chandelles and lazy eights, 500 ft AGL for the pylon work. Both are North Aero policy, not regulation (US-3.4). Pivotal altitude for the day is calculated in the brief and may be well above the pylon floor, in which case the calculated altitude is the working altitude and the floor is the limit.

Positive exchange of controls, both directions, every time.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-S-ACS-25, tasks AI.IX.C, AI.IX.D, and AI.IX.F, in full. Write down the tolerances for each.
• FAA-H-8083-3C, the performance maneuvers chapter, all three maneuvers.
• standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md, addition 2.

Deliverable: Three things. First, write the preflight ground lesson you will teach on these three maneuvers. This is one of your seventeen P3 plans, covering a performance maneuver at commercial standards. Second, for each of the three, write one sentence saying what skill it trains, in words you would say to a commercial student who asked why they have to do it. Third, work out pivotal altitude for two groundspeeds you expect today, and bring the working, not just the answer.

VS-29-1

Type: Exemplar | ACS task: AI.IX.D | Status: empty What it should show: a symmetrical lazy eight, narrated, with the slowest point at the highest point Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar

VS-29-2

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.IX.D | Status: empty What it should show: a lazy eight with a rushed top and a wide second half, so the asymmetry is visible against the reference points Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

VS-29-3

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.IX.F | Status: empty What it should show: a pylon correction attempted with bank, the pylon walking forward, then corrected with pitch Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

VS-29-4

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.IX.C | Status: empty What it should show: a chandelle with bank added progressively through the first half and yaw uncorrected as the airspeed decays Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

Tagged by ACS task. These serve every lesson touching AI.IX.C, AI.IX.D, and AI.IX.F.

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

Separate the flying grade from the teaching grade explicitly, and say both. More than anywhere else in the phase, a candidate here can teach well and fly at the edge, and telling them "it was fine" serves neither half. Name the flying honestly, name the teaching honestly, and say which one needs the next hour.

Expect this lesson to be repeated and normalize it in advance. A candidate who is told at the brief that this is the hardest flying in the program hears a second attempt as pacing rather than as failure. Per US-5.7, repeat attempts are tracked and remediation hours are recorded separately from program hours.

The honest-narration standard is the one candidates remember years later. A candidate who learns here that "I am correcting a little right yaw, watch what I am doing with my feet" is stronger than a confident silence has learned something no checkride tests directly and every Student benefits from.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-5.2, US-5.4, US-5.7
• ✓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 both hard floors
• ✓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), and a repeat is named as normal
• ✓Runs the four-part cycle from standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md
• ✓Positive exchange of controls practiced, including from an airplane not offered