Basic instrument maneuvers

The candidate teaches basic attitude instrument flying and unusual attitude recoveries from the right seat, to a Student who is not an instrument student. At the end they can run a hood session safely as the only person looking outside, and can teach a private student the three hours of instrument training that are meant to keep them alive rather than to make them instrument pilots.

The candidate holds an instrument rating, and that is the problem this lesson solves. They know how to fly instruments. What they have never done is teach somebody who cannot, in an airplane where nobody else is looking out the window.

A private pilot applicant, receiving the control and maneuvering by reference to instruments training required under 61.109(a)(3). Not an instrument student.

That distinction is the whole lesson and the candidate must be able to state it.

A candidate who teaches this as a short instrument course is teaching the wrong thing well. The content is correct and the framing produces a private pilot who thinks they have some instrument capability, which is precisely the pilot the accident record is full of.

Verbatim from live eCFR, read 2026-08-14 at title 14 currency 2026-08-12:

3 hours of flight training in a single-engine airplane on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments, including straight and level flight, constant airspeed climbs and descents, turns to a heading, recovery from unusual flight attitudes, radio communications, and the use of navigation systems/facilities and radar services appropriate to instrument flight

Six things, and ACS Area XI lists four of them. Straight and level, constant airspeed climbs and descents, turns to a heading, and unusual attitude recovery are AI.XI.A through AI.XI.E. Radio communications, and the use of navigation systems, facilities, and radar services, are in the regulation and are not in Area XI.

This matters at the moment of signing. Teach only what Area XI lists, then endorse a private student's three hours, and you have endorsed training the regulation describes more of. The four maneuvers are the flying. The last two are what makes the training survivable in a real encounter, because a pilot in cloud who cannot talk to anybody and cannot work the box is not much better off than one who cannot hold a heading.

So this lesson covers all six. The hood session includes at least one radio transmission and one navigation task. That is standard 6.

Element 7 is the safety content of the lesson and it is not obvious. In every other flight lesson in this program, two people are looking outside. Under the hood, one is, and it is the candidate, while they are also teaching, monitoring, and thinking about the next exercise. The traffic scan is not a shared responsibility today and the candidate must say so out loud before the hood goes on.

Element 10 is the teaching skill. A disoriented Student does not report being disoriented. They go quiet, they get rigid, and their control inputs get larger and later. The candidate has to recognize it and take the hood off, and the correct response to "are you all right?" is not a question, it is an instruction.

program/PROGRAM-STRUCTURE.md does not name this lesson as one of the emergency scenario lessons, and it does not need to be: the entire subject is an emergency procedure. The candidate should teach it that way, and should be able to say where the emergency thread has already appeared in their own training: lessons 12, 30, 32, 34, and 35, and then lesson 38 as its own subject.

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 XI. FAA-H-8083-15B. The airplane. A view limiting device that actually fits, checked before the flight rather than at altitude.

Candidate: headset, the flight manual for the airplane being flown, their written preflight ground lesson, and a plan for the hood session with the exercises in order.

Airplane: normal category, dual controls, with the instruments required for the exercises functioning. Good visibility outside, and airspace where a sustained lookout by one person is realistic. A busy practice area on a hazy afternoon is the wrong day for this lesson.

Cockpit recording: optional. Not one of the four P7 lessons.

1. Have the candidate brief the lookout arrangement explicitly, before the hood goes on, in the airplane, out loud. If they do not, prompt once and record that they needed prompting.
2. Take the brief as a private student. Ask "so will I be able to fly in clouds after this?", which is the question that reveals the framing.
3. Grade the brief before the airplane.
4. Check the view limiting device on the ground. Fitting it at altitude wastes flight time and is the sort of thing that gets skipped.
5. In part 2, ask the candidate to demonstrate with the cross-check narrated. A demonstration of instrument flying that is not narrated shows nothing, because the skill is invisible.
6. In part 3, wear the hood and be a private student. See the script. Fixate, omit, overcontrol, and go quiet.
7. Watch the candidate's lookout while they are teaching. This is the single most important observation of the lesson and it is easy to lose track of while listening to the instruction.
8. Do not let the unusual attitude recoveries become a game. Two nose-high, two nose-low, briefed, at a stated altitude, and stop.
9. Work a radio call and a navigation task into the hood session, per standard 6. It takes two minutes, it is in the regulation, and it is the half of 61.109(a)(3) that gets skipped.
10. Part 4, candidate first.

Simulated Student script notes

Not in the study guide. The Simulated Student is a private student with about twenty hours.

1. Teach the preflight ground lesson on basic instrument maneuvers, framed as survival training.
2. Brief the lookout arrangement out loud before the hood goes on.
3. Demonstrate straight-and-level, constant airspeed climbs and descents, and turns to headings from the right seat, narrating the cross-check.
4. Demonstrate unusual attitude recoveries, nose-high and nose-low.
5. Run a hood session for the Simulated Student, maintaining the traffic scan alone throughout, including at least one radio transmission and one navigation task under the hood.
6. Recognize the disoriented or overloaded Student and remove the hood.
7. Take the airplane at the threshold, out loud, three-way.
8. Critique, self-critique, then listen.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate delivers the preflight ground lesson on basic instrument maneuvers, covering all seven items of the brief, and states what 61.109(a)(3) training is for and what it is not, in terms a private student will take seriously.
2. The candidate briefs the lookout arrangement out loud, before the view limiting device is fitted, stating that they are the only person looking outside.
3. The candidate maintains a traffic scan throughout the hood session while instructing, and does not go head-down in the cockpit for more than five seconds at any point.
4. The candidate flies straight-and-level, constant airspeed climbs and descents, and turns to headings by reference to instruments, to the tolerances the current tasks specify, from the right seat, while narrating the cross-check.
5. The candidate demonstrates and teaches unusual attitude recoveries, both nose-high and nose-low, and teaches the nose-low recovery in the correct order with the reason.
6. The candidate includes at least one radio transmission and one use of a navigation system or radar service while the Simulated Student is under the hood, because 61.109(a)(3) names both and ACS Area XI does not.
7. The candidate names a cross-check error by name when the Simulated Student produces one, rather than only correcting the resulting deviation.
8. The candidate removes the view limiting device within five seconds of the Simulated Student going quiet and rigid, and instructs rather than asks.
9. 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.
10. The candidate delivers a critique naming the error, its probable cause, and the correction for at least two of the errors flown.
11. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's.

Standards 2, 3, and 8 are the safety standards and they carry the lesson. A candidate who taught beautifully and stopped looking outside has failed the lesson, and they should hear it in those words.

Falling short does not block lesson 38. No proficiency gate (Decision 9). It triggers policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md.

Verbatim in the study guide.

The instructor takes the airplane when:

• Bank exceeds 45 degrees at any time under the hood.
• Airspeed reaches 1.2 Vs1 or exceeds the maneuvering speed for today's weight without correction applied.
• A descending spiral develops and is not stopped within two seconds.
• Altitude passes 1,500 ft AGL descending.
• The candidate's attention is inside the cockpit for more than ten seconds at any point while the Student is under the hood.
• The Student is disoriented or rigid and the hood is not removed within five seconds.
• Either pilot is unclear about who is flying the airplane.

Hard floor: all instrument work is terminated by 1,500 ft AGL, and no unusual attitude is initiated below 3,000 ft AGL. North Aero policy, not regulation (US-3.4).

The ten second attention item is unique to this lesson and it applies to the candidate rather than to the Student. Under the hood the candidate is the entire collision avoidance system, and a threshold that only watched the airplane's attitude would miss the actual hazard of the day.

Positive exchange of controls, both directions, every time.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-S-ACS-25, tasks AI.XI.A through AI.XI.E, in full. Write down the tolerances.
• 14 CFR 61.109(a)(3), from live eCFR, on the day. Read what it actually requires, and write down all six things it names. Four of them are this lesson. Two of them are not in ACS Area XI at all. See below.
• FAA-H-8083-15B, 2012, the cross-check material in chapter 6 and the unusual attitude material in chapter 7. It carries three change documents. See the note below.
• standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md, addition 2.

Deliverable: Three things. First, write the preflight ground lesson you will teach on basic instrument maneuvers. Second, write the sentence you will say to a private student who asks whether this training means they can fly in clouds. Third, write your hood session plan: the exercises in order, how long each runs, and what you will say before the hood goes on about who is looking outside.

About FAA-H-8083-15B, because it is the oldest source this program cites. It is a 2012 edition with three change documents: an errata sheet running through October 10, 2014, an April 2015 addendum on angle of attack indicators, and Addendum B of November 2019 on ILS false courses.

None of the three changes anything this lesson teaches, checked against all three on 2026-08-14. The cross-check and its three errors are in chapter 6, spatial disorientation is in chapter 3, and unusual attitudes are in chapter 7, and no change document touches those pages.

One thing to know before you read chapter 7. The errata sheet corrects page 7-7, where "turn-and-slip" should read "turn coordinator". Read the errata sheet first; it is two pages.

VS-37-1

Type: Exemplar | ACS task: AI.XI.A | Status: empty What it should show: straight-and-level by reference to instruments with the cross-check narrated aloud, so that the invisible skill becomes audible Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar

VS-37-2

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.XI.D | Status: empty What it should show: fixation on the attitude indicator, with heading and altitude drifting unnoticed, then a late rollout corrected by a second turn Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

VS-37-3

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.XI.E | Status: empty What it should show: a nose-low unusual attitude recovered by pulling first, with the airspeed and load factor both increasing 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.XI.A through AI.XI.E.

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

Time the candidate's head-down periods and report the longest one. It is the only objective measure of standard 3, candidates consistently underestimate it, and it improves immediately once somebody says a number out loud.

Grade the framing sentence. Ask them at the debrief what they told the Student about flying in clouds. If the answer was soft, fix it now: a private pilot who leaves their instrument training believing they have a capability is the accident this entire subject exists to prevent.

Watch what happened when the Student went rigid. Five seconds is generous and most candidates take longer, because their instinct is to diagnose rather than to act. Name the instinct, and note that the hood coming off costs nothing and fixes everything.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-5.2, US-5.4, US-5.6
• ✓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 and an item on the candidate's own attention
• ✓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
• ✓Covers all six items 61.109(a)(3) names, not only the four ACS Area XI lists
• ✓Checked against all three FAA-H-8083-15B change documents, 2026-08-14