Mock oral

The candidate sits a full-scope mock oral with an instructor who has never taught them, and leaves with a written deficiency list they can act on. They find out what an examiner will find, one to three weeks before the examiner finds it.

The candidate does not leave with a pass or a fail. That is US-8.2 and it is the design decision this lesson turns on. See standards/MOCK-PRACTICAL.md.

The Delivery Pool must hold a second qualified instructor. It currently holds one.

North Aero cannot deliver this lesson today. This is objective O2 and risk R1, it is escalated on SUPERVISOR-TASKS.md, and it is not worked around. The Supervising Instructor does not conduct this lesson and call it independent, the lesson is not shortened because nobody is available, and an instructor who does not meet 61.195(h) is not used on the grounds that a mock is not a real test. The refused workarounds are listed individually in standards/MOCK-PRACTICAL.md because each of them is the one that would look reasonable at the time.

The second instructor meets 61.195(h) to give this training, exactly as the Supervising Instructor does. See standards/DELIVERY-CAPABILITY.md. Being a second body is not the qualification.

Booked at the phase 3 to phase 4 boundary, at least two weeks ahead. A three hour commitment from a second instructor is not available on demand, which is why program/PROGRAM-STRUCTURE.md names the scheduling consequence rather than leaving it implied.

Read these before building the plan of action:

You will not be able to watch the footage and you should not plan to. Per Decision 37 and ADR 0002 the cockpit footage was deleted on the 30 day Promotion Window and the written assessment is what was retained. Anything from phase 3 that matters was written down in phase 3.

You do not read the candidate's own lesson plans in advance. They will bring their seventeen P3 plans, and meeting them cold is closer to what an examiner does.

The elements are the areas of operation, tested as an evaluator would test them.

Area XIII is excluded in full as n/a ASEL, per program/COVERAGE-MATRIX.md. Do not test it and do not invent it.

Ground only, 240 minutes. Reconciles with the declared 4.0 ground and 0 dual.

Raised from 3.0 to 4.0 hours on 2026-08-14, on Erick's decision. The extra hour went where a real oral actually runs long rather than being spread evenly: the technical subject areas gained fifteen minutes and the maneuver areas gained twenty-five, because those are the two blocks an examiner works through task by task.

The block is a floor, not a cap. Per standards/MOCK-PRACTICAL.md the mock ends when the plan of action is complete, not when the clock runs out. Time beyond four hours is recorded under policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md rather than absorbed. This lesson is the single most likely lesson in this program to overrun, and raising it to 4.0 makes it a better floor rather than a new ceiling. If real mocks show four hours is also short, the same route applies: change the parameter, not the scope.

Second instructor: FAA-S-ACS-25, complete. standards/MOCK-PRACTICAL.md. The candidate's coverage matrix, knowledge test reports, and deficiency closure log. The written assessments from lessons 25, 26, 33, and 38. A written plan of action, built in advance. The blank deficiency list.

Candidate: all seventeen of their P3 lesson plans, on paper. Their logbook. Their knowledge test reports. Whatever they would bring to the practical test.

Room: a table, two chairs, and a door that closes. Three hours.

No airplane. This lesson is ground only.

Taught Ground Lesson: partly, and it is not treated as one. The candidate teaches in this lesson, but the lesson is an assessment rather than instruction, and crediting Coverage from a mock would put an assessment into the Coverage record. Meeting title convention: CFI Mock Oral - L40 - <YYYY-MM-DD> if recorded Participants: each on their own device, headset, Workspace account Coverage maps to: nothing. This lesson generates no Coverage. Fallback if capture fails: none needed. The deficiency list is the record, it is written by hand, and it does not depend on a recording existing.

Recording this lesson is permitted and is not required. Per standards/MOCK-PRACTICAL.md the written deficiency list is the record. A candidate who wants the recording for their own review may have it, subject to policy/RECORDING-AND-RETENTION.md.

1. Build the plan of action in advance and write it down. All required areas and tasks, scenario-based, weighted by the coverage matrix and the knowledge test codes. FAA-S-ACS-25 Appendix 1 requires an evaluator to do this and the mock is not exempt.
2. Start with the documents, as an examiner does. Fifteen minutes on eligibility and paperwork, before any aviation question. It sets the tone and it catches things lesson 39 missed.
3. Ask for teaching, not for answers. The certificate is about instructing. "Tell me about airspace" is a knowledge test question. "Teach me Class D entry, I am a forty-hour student who has never talked to a tower" is a practical test question.
4. Use scenarios and let them unfold. Introduce problems and simulated emergencies as the scenario develops, per Appendix 1. Do not read down a task list.
5. Test the knowledge test deficiency codes explicitly. Appendix 1 requires it and 61.39(a)(6)(iii) requires the recommending instructor to have certified it. If a closed code turns out not to be closed, that is a deficiency row and it is also a finding about the closure process.
6. Go one question past comfortable. The candidate's own instructor stops when the answer is good enough. You do not, because an examiner does not. This is the specific value you add and it is the reason a second instructor is required.
7. Write as you go. Observations in behavior terms, on the deficiency list, during the lesson. Reconstructed afterwards they become opinions.
8. Do not teach. You are assessing. If the candidate is genuinely stuck, note it and move on. Teaching during the mock destroys the measurement and it is the most common way a mock becomes comfortable.
9. Take the self-critique first, before you read anything back. Count how many of their own deficiencies they find. Record that number on the list.
10. State your opinion once, and label it. A sentence, recorded on the deficiency list, not a grade and not a recommendation. The recommendation is lesson 42 and it is the Supervising Instructor's.
11. Say what a real evaluator would have done at the end. Plainly. Per standards/MOCK-PRACTICAL.md this is information rather than a gate, and lesson 41 runs regardless (Decision 9).

Simulated Student script notes

Not in the study guide, per the template's duplication rule.

The role in this lesson is the evaluator, and it shifts. For most of the three hours you are an examiner. When the candidate is asked to teach something, you become the Student they are teaching, and the level of that Student is yours to choose and to change.

Do not warn them which move is coming. That is the whole value of a second instructor.

1. Arrive with all seventeen P3 lesson plans on paper, their logbook, and their test reports.
2. Sit a full-scope oral covering every applicable area of operation.
3. Teach on demand, at whatever level the evaluator asks for, and re-pitch when the level changes.
4. Name the source behind what they assert, and distinguish regulation from guidance and from school policy.
5. Say "I do not know" where it is true, and say how they would find out.
6. Self-critique before hearing anything back, naming their own deficiencies first.
7. Agree the deficiency list, or say where they disagree with it and why.

Identical wording in the study guide.

Read the note under standard 8 before reading standards 1 to 7.

1. The candidate sits the full plan of action, covering every applicable area of operation, without the scope being reduced for time.
2. The candidate teaches, rather than answers, when asked to teach, in at least six separate areas of operation.
3. The candidate re-pitches an explanation to a different level of Student on request, at least twice, without restarting the explanation.
4. The candidate names the source behind an assertion when asked, and correctly distinguishes regulation from advisory or handbook guidance at least twice (US-3.4).
5. The candidate teaches from one of their own P3 lesson plans, handed to them cold, and the plan supports the teaching.
6. The candidate answers questions on the elements behind every knowledge test deficiency code previously recorded as closed.
7. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the deficiency list, and names at least half of the deficiencies the evaluator recorded.
8. A written deficiency list exists at the end of the lesson, in the format in standards/MOCK-PRACTICAL.md, with every row carrying an observation, the standard not met, an assigned remediation, an owner, and a date.

Standard 8 is the only one that is about the lesson rather than the candidate, and it is the one that must never be missed. A mock that produces no written list has produced nothing, whatever happened in the room.

There is no pass mark and there is no fail. Standards 1 to 7 describe what the candidate does, and shortfalls against them become rows on the deficiency list rather than a verdict. Falling short does not block lesson 41 (Decision 9), and it triggers policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md where the assigned remediation carries hours.

Not applicable. This is a ground lesson and no airplane is flown.

The field is retained rather than deleted, per the template. The intervention threshold for the mock flight is stated in lesson 41, in both halves, and it is the same threshold used throughout phase 3.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• standards/MOCK-PRACTICAL.md, in full. You should know exactly what today is and what it produces, including that it does not produce a pass or a fail.
• FAA-S-ACS-25, the areas of operation in full. All of them. This is the last point at which reading it end to end is useful.
• FAA-S-ACS-25 Appendix 1, the sections on evaluator responsibilities and possible outcomes.
• Your own knowledge test reports, and your deficiency closure log. Assume every code on them will be asked about again.

Bring:

• All seventeen of your P3 lesson plans, on paper. Any of them may be handed back to you and you may be asked to teach from it cold.
• Your logbook, and both original knowledge test reports.
• Whatever else you would bring to the practical test.

Do not prepare a script. Three hours of scenario-based questioning from somebody who has never taught you will find the edge of a memorized answer in the first twenty minutes. Prepare by teaching the material to somebody, out loud, in the week before.

Not applicable, and the field is retained rather than deleted.

Video Slots hold Clips of a Student flying a maneuver, per CONTEXT.md and Decision 32. This lesson teaches no maneuver and shows no flying. Clips the candidate critiques as part of a scenario, if any are used, are the existing Clips from the phase 3 lessons rather than new slots belonging to this lesson.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not any Video Slots exist.

The purpose is to find things. A mock that finds nothing has failed, not succeeded.

Say that to the candidate at the start. A candidate who thinks the goal is to get through cleanly will hedge, and hedging hides exactly what this lesson is for. A candidate who understands the goal is to surface problems while they are still cheap will engage differently, and the lesson is worth three times as much.

The most diagnostic single move is the level change. Standard 3. Candidates who have only ever taught a Simulated Student played by their own instructor have usually converged on one pitch. An examiner will not warn them before changing Student, and neither should you.

Count the self-critique. Standard 7 is a number, and it is worth recording as a number on the deficiency list: found six of nine. Over a program that number is the best single predictor of whether a new instructor will self-correct without supervision, which is what post-certificate mentorship inherits.

Write the deficiency list during the lesson, not afterwards. Per standards/CRITIQUE-STANDARD.md an observation stated as behavior is a fact, and the same observation reconstructed two hours later is an impression. The candidate is entitled to the fact.

You do not set Tracker Status and you do not write the recommendation. Both are the Supervising Instructor's, named and dated, per cross-cutting requirement 9. Your output is the deficiency list and one labelled sentence of opinion. Lesson 42 is where the decision is made.

Hand the deficiency list to the Supervising Instructor and to the candidate the same day, and file it. It survives certification, and post-certificate mentorship consumes it in another project.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-8.2, US-8.1, US-7.2, US-11.1
• ✓Carries ACS areas and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior
• ✓Common candidate errors listed, each with the instructor's response
• ✓Intervention threshold marked not applicable, with the reason, rather than deleted
• ✓Student preparation named, in the student half
• ✓FAA references verified current, 2026-08-14, at title 14 currency 2026-08-12
• ✓Passes the design system check
• ✓Appears in the program structure, hours reconciling. Claims no new ACS task
• ✓Both halves exist
• ✓Video Slots marked not applicable, with the reason, rather than deleted
• ✓Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
• ✓No em dashes, no reproduced flight manual numbers, no pricing
• ✓Falling short does not block progression (Decision 9)
• ✓Conducted by a second Delivery Pool instructor, with no escape clause (US-8.2, Decision 4)
• ✓Full practical test scope, with the duration rule stated and the overrun made visible
• ✓Output is a written deficiency list, not a pass or fail verdict
• ✓Assessment prepared from retained written assessments, not footage (Decision 37, ADR 0002)
• ✓The one-instructor Delivery Pool is named here and escalated on the board, not worked around