Question bank

• Enter with pressure altitude, temperature, weight, wind, and often runway slope and surface condition, and read out the distance to accelerate to the specified speed, lose an engine, react, and stop.
• Compare that to the runway available. If accelerate-stop exceeds it, an engine failure near that speed means going off the end.

What to do about it:

• Reduce weight, wait for cooler temperatures, or use a longer runway.
• Adjust the briefed decision point - if accelerate-stop doesn't fit, the honest brief is that above a certain speed you are going flying regardless.

Remember that chart figures assume a prompt reaction, a dry runway, and a new airplane. Add margin. And note the chart may not extend to today's conditions, which is itself a result worth respecting.

• Accelerate-stop distance - The runway required to accelerate to a given speed, lose an engine, recognize it, and bring the airplane to a full stop.
• Accelerate-go distance - The horizontal distance required to accelerate to that speed, lose an engine, and continue the takeoff and climb to 50 ft.

Both are ACS knowledge items, but normal-category light twins don't all publish them - check your AFM, and where the data isn't there, brief from the takeoff and single-engine performance data you do have.

The critical point: the regulations do not require a light twin's runway to be at least the accelerate-stop distance. Most AFM/POHs publish it only as an advisory; it becomes a limitation only when published in the limitations section. Nor is there any guarantee accelerate-go is even achievable. It's routine for accelerate-go to exceed the runway available, or for the chart to simply not extend to today's conditions - which is itself the answer.

How runway length enters the go/no-go decision: compare accelerate-stop against the runway available and accelerate-go against runway plus clearway. Check normal takeoff distance too - it's the easy number most people compute and then stop thinking. Runway in a twin buys you the ability to stop, which is usually your best option when an engine quits early, so a longer runway widens the window in which aborting is viable - exactly the window where a light twin's continue option is weakest.

Compute both before takeoff where the AFM publishes them. They are what turn a vague plan into a briefed decision point.

• Each propeller blows high-velocity air over the section of wing directly behind it, so that part of the wing produces substantially more lift than the rest.
• With both engines running, the effect is symmetric and you never notice it.
• When one engine quits, the lift behind the dead engine drops away while the operating side keeps its accelerated slipstream. The result is a rolling moment toward the dead engine, on top of the yaw from asymmetric thrust.
• It's also one of the four factors that make one engine critical, and P-factor is what links the two. At a positive angle of attack the descending blade produces more thrust, so it accelerates more air over the wing behind it. On two clockwise-turning propellers the descending blade of each is on its right side, which displaces the center of the added lift to the right of each engine's centerline.
• That displacement is outboard on the right engine and inboard on the left. So losing the left engine leaves the right engine producing its extra lift at a longer arm from the airplane's longitudinal axis, and the rolling moment toward the dead engine is stronger. Losing the right engine leaves the left engine working at a shorter arm, and the roll is weaker - which is one of the four reasons the left engine is critical.

A stall at more than 1 G. Stall speed is usually quoted for 1 G flight at a particular weight and configuration. In a turn, a pull-up, or any abrupt change in flightpath, the wing stalls at a higher airspeed.

• Why: holding altitude in a bank takes a higher AOA.
• How much: stall speed rises with the square root of load factor, about 19% at 45° and about 41% at 60°.
• Where it happens by accident: improperly executed turns, stall and spin recoveries, pullouts from steep dives, and overshooting the base-to-final turn.
• The demonstration: no lower than 3,000 ft AGL, at or below V_A or V_O, in a coordinated 45° banked turn, then increase back pressure smoothly and firmly until the stall is impending.
• Configuration: the evaluator specifies it, but never practice it with flaps extended, because their design load limit is lower.
• Why at or below V_A: the wing reaches the critical AOA and stalls before the design load limit is reached. Above it, you can overstress the airplane before it stalls.
• What it feels like: often a sharper buffet. Coordinated, the nose pitches down as in a wings-level stall. Uncoordinated, the bank can change, and a delayed recovery can become a spin.
• Recovery at the first indication: forward elevator to reduce the AOA, level the wings with aileron, coordinate with rudder, adjust power. Then accelerate to V_X or V_Y and return to the assigned altitude, heading, and airspeed.

• Aircraft accident: between the time anyone boards with the intention of flight and everyone has disembarked, any person suffers death or serious injury, or the aircraft receives substantial damage.
• Incident: any other occurrence associated with operating an aircraft that affects or could affect the safety of operations.

Serious injury is any injury that:

• Requires hospitalization for more than 48 hours, starting within 7 days of the injury.
• Fractures any bone, except simple fractures of fingers, toes, or nose.
• Causes severe hemorrhage, or nerve, muscle, or tendon damage.
• Involves any internal organ.
• Involves second or third degree burns, or any burns over more than 5% of the body surface.

Substantial damage adversely affects structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics and would normally require major repair or replacement of the component. These do not count:

• Engine failure or damage limited to one engine.
• Bent fairings or cowling, dented skin, small punctured holes in the skin or fabric.
• Ground damage to propeller blades.
• Damage to landing gear, wheels, tires, flaps, engine accessories, brakes, or wingtips.

The trap is assuming every incident gets reported to the NTSB. Only an accident, an overdue aircraft believed to have been in an accident, or an incident on the § 830.5 list requires immediate notification.

They answer different questions: who is responsible, and whose logbook it goes in. One flight can have two different answers.

• Acting as PIC means being the person directly responsible for, and the final authority as to, the operation of the aircraft, per § 91.3(a). One person at a time, and they need the ratings, medical, and currency for that flight.
• Logging PIC is a recordkeeping rule. You may log it as sole manipulator of the controls of an aircraft you are rated in, as the sole occupant, or when acting as PIC of an aircraft requiring more than one pilot.

So on a dual flight a rated pilot logs PIC as sole manipulator while the instructor logs PIC for serving as the authorized instructor, which § 61.51(e)(3) allows whenever the instructor is rated to act as PIC of that aircraft. Both log the time legitimately, and the instructor's entitlement does not depend on being the acting PIC. Who is acting PIC is a separate question: a rated, current, and medically qualified pilot receiving instruction can be the one acting.

Required by § 91.225 in:

• Class A, Class B, and Class C
• Within 30 NM of a Class B primary airport, surface to 10,000 ft MSL, the Mode C veil. Airplanes never certificated with an engine-driven electrical system, originally or since, such as a J-3 Cub without one installed, are exempt outside and below any Class B or C
• Above the ceiling and within the lateral boundaries of Class B or Class C, up to 10,000 ft MSL
• Class E at and above 10,000 ft MSL in the 48 contiguous states and DC, excluding airspace at and below 2,500 ft AGL. The same aircraft are exempt here
• Class E over the Gulf of Mexico at and above 3,000 ft MSL within 12 NM of the coast

Class A requires 1090ES. Below 18,000 ft MSL, either 1090ES or 978 UAT satisfies the rule.

ADS-B Out is what the regulation requires. ADS-B In, which puts traffic and weather in the cockpit, is never required.

Possibly. Required for:

• Class E at or above 10,000 ft MSL in the 48 contiguous states and DC, excluding at or below 2,500 ft AGL. Airplanes never certificated with an engine-driven electrical system, originally or since, such as a J-3 Cub without one installed, are exempt here
• Above the ceiling and within the lateral boundaries of Class B or Class C airspace up to 10,000 ft MSL
• Class E airspace over the Gulf of Mexico at and above 3,000 ft MSL within 12 NM of the U.S. coastline
• Mode C veil. The same aircraft are exempt outside and below any Class B or C

Fly the rollout first. Hold the track over the centerline with aileron and the heading with rudder, and slow to normal taxi speed with normal brake pressure before turning off. Any significant turn at speed risks damage to the landing gear, tires, brakes, or structure.

Then clear the runway completely and stop beyond the holding position markings before touching anything.

The after-landing items come from the AFM/POH, and typically include:

• Power to the AFM/POH setting, often 1,000 rpm, propeller full forward, mixture leaned
• Fuel tank selection and pumps as required
• Flaps retracted
• Cowl flaps open or closed for the conditions
• Trim reset to neutral or takeoff
• Lights not needed switched off, strobes for instance
• Avionics set for arrival taxi, including the transponder

The manufacturer may direct specific items during the rollout instead, such as retracting flaps on a short-field landing to improve braking. Where it does, positively identify the flap handle first: pilots have retracted the gear instead while the airplane was moving.

Parking. Unless the area is designated and supervised, pick a spot and heading where propeller or jet blast from other airplanes will not strike you, and park into the wind where you can. After stopping, roll straight ahead slightly to straighten the nosewheel.

• The system computes aircraft attitude and heading and replaces the separate gyros of the attitude indicator, magnetic heading indicator, and turn indicator.
• Air data comes from a separate air data computer (ADC), often integrated into the same displays. It processes pitot pressure, static pressure, and temperature to calculate altitude, IAS, TAS, and air temperature.
• A magnetometer senses direction, accelerometers sense acceleration, and solid-state gyros sense attitude/rotation.

Fewer mechanical parts that can break, and no tumbling: solid-state systems replace the free-spinning gyros and can operate at any attitude.

An air mass takes on the temperature and moisture of the surface it sits over for an extended period. When it moves and meets an air mass with different characteristics, the boundary between them is a front.

The four types, named for the temperature of the advancing air relative to the air it replaces:

• Warm: warm air overtaking cooler air. Shallow slope and gradual changes over a long distance. If the rising warm air is stable, widespread stratiform cloud and light to moderate precipitation, with poor visibility. In summer, thunderstorms are likely to develop.
• Cold: cold air overtaking warmer air. Steep slope and a rapid clearing with good visibility behind. If the warm air forced aloft is unstable, often a narrow band of showers and thunderstorms along or just ahead of the front. The cloud type depends on the stability of that warm air.
• Stationary: neither air mass displacing the other. Conditions persist, sometimes for days.
• Occluded: a fast moving cold front catches a slow moving warm front, and there are two kinds. In a cold front occlusion the advancing cold air is colder than the air ahead of the warm front. In a warm front occlusion the air ahead is colder, so the cold front rides up and over the warm front; if the air forced aloft is unstable, this one is the more severe. As the occluded front approaches, warm front weather prevails, immediately followed by cold front weather.

An approaching front of any type means the weather is about to change. The reliable clues are a wind shift, a temperature change, and a pressure change.

Remember them as ARROW:

• Airworthiness certificate, displayed at the cabin or cockpit entrance so it is legible to passengers or crew.
• Registration certificate.
• Radio station license, only for international flights. This one is an FCC requirement, not an FAA one.
• Operating limitations: the AFM/POH, placards, and markings.
• Weight and balance data, current for the aircraft as equipped. It is not a free-standing § 91.203 item: it rides along inside the AFM/POH, which § 91.9 requires.

A standard airworthiness certificate has no expiry date. It remains in effect as long as the aircraft receives the required maintenance and is properly registered in the United States.

Advisories for en route weather that may be hazardous, especially to light aircraft. Three categories, and the letters are what you will be asked for:

Timing comes in two forms. Over the CONUS they are displayed graphically, sometimes called G-AIRMETs, valid at discrete times no more than 3 hr apart out to 12 hr. The text bulletin behind them is issued every 6 hr (0245, 0845, 1445, and 2045Z) and is valid 6 hr. Unscheduled AIRMETs are issued when conditions occur that were not forecast.

The difference from a SIGMET is severity and audience: moderate conditions hazardous to light aircraft, against severe conditions hazardous to all aircraft.

The color combination identifies the kind of airport:

• White and green: lighted land airport. Green alone means the same thing, and is used only alongside a white-and-green display.
• White and yellow: lighted water airport. Yellow alone likewise.
• Green, yellow, and white: lighted heliport.
• Military: alternating white and green like a civil field, but distinguished by dual-peaked, two quick white flashes between the green ones.

In Class B, C, D, and E surface areas, a beacon operating during daylight often indicates the ground visibility is less than 3 miles and/or the ceiling is less than 1,000 ft. An ATC clearance is then required for landing, takeoff, and flight in the traffic pattern.

Do not read the beacon as a weather report. At some towered fields ATC switches it on and off; at many airports a photoelectric cell or a time clock runs it and ATC cannot control it at all. There is no regulatory requirement for daylight operation, and the preflight planning § 91.103 requires is still yours.

A runway safety problem area or intersection on an airport, typically a complex or confusing taxiway/taxiway or taxiway/runway intersection.

• The confusion can be compounded by a miscommunication between a controller and a pilot, and can compromise an aircraft separation standard.
• The area may have a history of surface incidents, or the potential for them.
• On the airport diagram, a hot spot is a brown open circle or ellipse with a leader to its number, such as HS 1.
• The number matches a listing and description on the Hot Spot page in the front of the Terminal Procedures Publication.
• A taxiway crossing two runways that themselves intersect is a typical example.
• Before taxi, carry a current airport diagram and trace or highlight your route to the runway, noting the hot spots on it.
• If you are unsure of the route, ask ATC for progressive taxi instructions.

Color tells you whether a sign is an instruction or information.

Red means stop. At a towered airport, do not cross a runway holding position without an ATC clearance; at a nontowered one, ensure adequate separation first. Never enter a No Entry area. Black tells you where you are and yellow where you can go, with one exception: the two boundary signs are yellow and tell you what you have just left.

Shapes and purpose:

• B is individually tailored, a surface area plus two or more layers, the upside-down wedding cake. Every cleared aircraft receives separation services.
• C is usually a 5 NM radius surface area with a 10 NM outer circle from 1,200 ft to 4,000 ft above the field, at airports with a tower and radar approach control.
• D exists where there is an operating control tower. Where instrument procedures are published, it is normally designed to contain them.
• E is the controlled airspace that is none of the above, with floors commonly at 700 or 1,200 ft AGL and 14,500 ft MSL where nothing lower is designated.
• G is uncontrolled. ATC has no authority or responsibility there.

Equipment rules reach into E and G. In the 48 contiguous states and DC, a Mode C transponder is required in all airspace at and above 10,000 ft MSL and ADS-B Out in Class E there, both excluding airspace at and below 2,500 ft AGL. Both are also required above a Class B or C ceiling up to 10,000 ft MSL and inside the 30 NM Mode C veil, much of which is E or G. Airplanes never certificated with an engine-driven electrical system, originally or since, such as a J-3 Cub without one installed, are exempt at and above 10,000 ft, and in the veil outside and below any Class B or C. ADS-B Out is also required in Class E over the Gulf of Mexico at and above 3,000 ft MSL.

Three limits from § 91.117:

• 250 knots indicated below 10,000 ft MSL, unless otherwise authorized by the Administrator.
• 200 knots at or below 2,500 ft above the surface within 4 NM of the primary airport of Class C or Class D airspace, unless otherwise authorized or required by ATC. Controllers do assign speeds there.
• 200 knots in the airspace underlying Class B, or in a VFR corridor through it. This limit has no ATC exception.

The 200 knot limit does not apply inside Class B itself. There you comply with the 250 knot rule.

If the minimum safe airspeed for any particular operation is greater than the limit, you may fly at that minimum speed.

Required on FAA-certificated aircraft of 12,500 lb or less manufactured after 1945, so you can read a limitation at a glance.

The two stall speeds are the ones to keep apart. V_S0 is the stall speed in the landing configuration; in small airplanes, power-off, gear and flaps down, at maximum landing weight. V_S1 is the stall speed in a specified configuration; for most airplanes, power-off and clean, gear and flaps up, at maximum takeoff weight.

Not every limitation is on the dial. V_A, V_LO, V_LE, V_X and V_Y appear only on placards and in the AFM/POH. V_A changes with weight: lower when the airplane is lightly loaded.

If the needle is in the yellow arc and moving toward the red line, the response is to reduce airspeed.

Not on its face, but it can end four ways. The certificate's own terms read: unless sooner surrendered, suspended, revoked, or a termination date is otherwise established by the Administrator, it is effective as long as maintenance, preventive maintenance, and alterations are performed per parts 21, 43, and 91, and the aircraft is registered in the United States.

• It must be displayed at the cabin or cockpit entrance so that it is legible to passengers or crew.
• It stays with the aircraft when sold, unless it is sold to a foreign purchaser.
• The continuing conditions are the maintenance and the U.S. registration. Conformity to the type certificate is certified as of the date of issuance.

A legally enforceable rule issued by the FAA to correct an unsafe condition in a product. ADs are regulatory and shall be complied with unless a specific exemption is granted.

• One-time ADs are complied with once. Recurring ADs repeat at an interval.
• Emergency ADs are of a nature requiring immediate compliance prior to further flight.
• A Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) is the FAA's non-regulatory notice of an airworthiness concern. It is information, not a requirement.
• A manufacturer's service bulletin is likewise not mandatory under part 91 unless an AD adopts it.
• There is no provision to overfly the maximum hour requirement of an AD unless the AD itself says so. The 10-hour allowance on a 100-hour inspection has no counterpart here.

Operating with an overdue AD makes the aircraft unairworthy no matter how well it flies, and the compliance record lives in the maintenance logs rather than in the aircraft.

Four separate prohibitions on acting or attempting to act as a crewmember of a civil aircraft. Breaking any one of them is enough.

• Within 8 hours after consuming any alcoholic beverage.
• While under the influence of alcohol.
• While using any drug that affects your faculties contrary to safety.
• With an alcohol concentration of 0.04 or greater.

Eight hours is a floor, not a clearance. You can be well past it and still be impaired, and the "under the influence" prohibition has no time limit attached.

Except in an emergency, you also may not allow a person who appears to be intoxicated, or who demonstrates by manner or physical indications that they are under the influence of drugs, to be carried in the aircraft. A medical patient under proper care is excepted.

A crewmember must also, on the request of an authorized law enforcement officer investigating a suspected violation, submit to a blood or breath test. Where the FAA has reasonable basis to believe you violated the 8-hour, under-the-influence, or 0.04 prohibition, you must on request release the results of any test taken within 4 hours after acting or attempting to act as a crewmember.

• Must not have "/A\ NA" in the IAPs listed for that airport
• If nonstandard alternate minimums are published in the IAPs ("/A\"), forecast weather must be at least what is prescribed in the IFR Alternate Airport Minimums portion of the Terminal Procedures Publication (TPP).
  • In ForeFlight, they can be found on the airport's Procedure -> Arrival -> Alternate Minimums.
• If no nonstandard alternate minimums are published in the IAPs, forecast weather must be 600 ft and 2 SM visibility for precision approaches, or 800 ft and 2 SM visibility for non-precision approaches.
• No IAP is required if forecast weather at your ETA allows for descent from the MEA, approach, and landing under VFR.

• 1-2-3 rule: from 1 hr before to 1 hr after ETA, destination weather is forecast below a 2,000 ft ceiling or 3 SM visibility.
• Also, if the destination has no IAP, you must file an alternate.

• Cockpit static pressure is usually lower than outside static pressure.
• That lower pressure usually causes the altimeter to indicate higher.
• That lower static pressure usually causes the airspeed indicator to read higher.

Destination TAF if available; if not, appropriate forecasts/reports such as nearby TAFs, prog charts, METAR trends, and Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFA)

It is engine driven, usually by a belt, so it spins whenever the engine runs.

Making the electricity. The spinning rotor is an electromagnet, not a permanent magnet. A small field current through its windings is what makes it a magnet. Spinning that magnet past the stationary windings induces alternating current, and diodes inside the alternator rectify it to DC.

Where the field current comes from. The battery and bus, through the alternator field circuit: whatever switch the airplane uses to control the alternator, plus its circuit breaker. Arrangements vary between types. The voltage regulator sets output by varying it: more field current, stronger magnet, more output. Output is held above battery voltage so the battery charges, roughly 14 volts for a 12 volt battery.

Turning it off. The switch cannot stop the alternator turning, because the belt is still driving it off a running engine. It removes the field current, so the rotor stops being a magnet and there is nothing to induce against. The alternator keeps spinning and produces nothing.

That is how you isolate a failed or overvoltage alternator in flight. The entire load is then on the battery, so shed everything nonessential.

No, it exceeds the 75 ft tolerance.

Static air pressure compresses aneroid wafers while natural springiness tries to expand them. As pressure decreases, the aneroid expands and indicates a higher altitude, and vice versa.