Mock oral

What this lesson is for: finding out what an examiner will find, one to three weeks before the examiner finds it.

It is conducted by a different instructor. Not your Supervising Instructor. Somebody from the Delivery Pool who has never taught you, who does not know the words you use, and who has not already decided you are ready.

That is not a lack of confidence in you. It is the only way this lesson works. Your own instructor supplied half the steps in your explanations, so the missing ones sound present to them. They will not sound present to a stranger, and an examiner is a stranger.

It produces a written deficiency list with assigned remediation. That is deliberate, it is required by US-8.2, and it is worth understanding before you walk in.

A mock that ends in "you passed" tells you nothing you can act on. A mock that ends in "you failed" tells you one thing and ruins your week. The list tells you what to work on, in what order, and by when, and lesson 42 exists to close it.

So the goal today is not to get through cleanly. The goal is to surface every problem while it is still cheap to fix. A mock that finds nothing has failed. If you hedge, you will hide exactly what you came here to find, and you will meet it again in three weeks at a much worse price.

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. Four 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.

Everything. Every area of operation applicable to an initial flight instructor certificate, airplane single-engine land, at full scope.

1. Your application, eligibility, documents, and logbook, reviewed the way an examiner reviews them.
2. Area I, fundamentals of instructing.
3. Area II, the technical subject areas.
4. Area III, preflight preparation.
5. Area IV, the preflight lesson on a maneuver to be performed in flight.
6. Areas V and VI, preflight procedures and airport operations.
7. Areas VII and VIII, takeoffs, landings, go-arounds, and the fundamentals of flight.
8. Areas IX, X, XI, XII, and XIV, performance and ground reference maneuvers, slow flight, stalls and spins, basic instrument maneuvers, emergency operations, and postflight.
9. The elements behind every knowledge test code you previously missed.

Point 9 is not us being thorough. FAA-S-ACS-25 Appendix 1 requires an evaluator to test any element you were shown to be deficient on in the knowledge test. Your real examiner will do this. So will we.

The scope is not reduced for time. If we are not finished at four hours, we are not finished, and we either carry on or book a second session that week.

1. Sit a full-scope oral covering every applicable area of operation.
2. Teach, rather than answer, whenever you are asked to teach.
3. Re-pitch an explanation when the level of the Student in front of you changes, without starting over.
4. Name the source behind what you assert, and say whether it is regulation, guidance, or school policy.
5. Teach from one of your own lesson plans, handed to you cold.
6. Say "I do not know" where that is the true answer, and say how you would find out.
7. Critique yourself before you hear anything back.
8. Agree the deficiency list, or say where you disagree with it and why.

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

1. You sit the full plan of action, covering every applicable area of operation, without the scope being reduced for time.
2. You teach, rather than answer, when asked to teach, in at least six separate areas of operation.
3. You re-pitch an explanation to a different level of Student on request, at least twice, without restarting the explanation.
4. You name the source behind an assertion when asked, and correctly distinguish regulation from advisory or handbook guidance at least twice.
5. You teach from one of your own P3 lesson plans, handed to you cold, and the plan supports the teaching.
6. You answer questions on the elements behind every knowledge test deficiency code previously recorded as closed.
7. You deliver a self-critique before hearing the deficiency list, and name at least half of the deficiencies the evaluator recorded.
8. A written deficiency list exists at the end of the lesson, with every row carrying an observation, the standard not met, an assigned remediation, an owner, and a date.

There is no pass mark and there is no fail. Standards 1 to 7 describe what you do, and shortfalls become rows on the list rather than a verdict. Falling short does not block lesson 41. It triggers the visibility rule in policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md, where any assigned remediation carries its own hours so you can see what it costs and why.

Standard 7 is counted as a number, and the number is recorded. Found six of nine, or found none of nine. It is the best single indicator of whether you will catch your own mistakes once nobody is watching, which is the whole of your first year as an instructor.

• Answering the question instead of teaching the subject. This is the most common one by a distance. "Tell me about airspace" and "teach me Class D entry, I am a forty-hour student who has never talked to a tower" are different requests, and the certificate is about the second.
• Teaching everything at one level, usually your own. You have mostly taught a Simulated Student played by your own instructor. A stranger will change the Student on you without warning.
• Reciting a lesson plan rather than teaching from it. A plan is a structure, not a script.
• Bringing plans you did not write. It shows within ninety seconds. It always does.
• Stating school policy or handbook guidance as though it were regulation. You have been warned about this since lesson 5 and it is still the easiest fault to commit under pressure.
• Guessing rather than saying "I do not know". Saying it is a pass. Guessing is not, and the habit is worse than the gap.
• Arguing with the Student instead of correcting them. Correct the fact, keep their dignity.
• Going quiet under pressure. The lesson 26 failure mode, in a chair instead of a cockpit.
• Assuming a closed deficiency code stays closed. It was closed once. It will be asked again.
• Critiquing yourself generously. Standard 7 counts. Be harder on yourself than we are, because today that is free.
• Waiting for a verdict at the end. There is not one. You will get a list.

Not applicable. This is a ground lesson and we do not fly it.

Your intervention threshold for the mock flight is in the lesson 41 study guide, stated in advance, and it is the same one we have used since phase 3 started.

Not applicable. Video Slots hold Clips of a Student flying a maneuver. This lesson teaches no maneuver and shows no flying.

We may record this lesson if you want it for your own review. The recording is not the record. The written deficiency list is, and it is yours the same day.

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