If you are studying for a flight instructor checkride from a Practical Test Standards document, stop. Instructor practical tests in the airplane category are conducted to the Flight Instructor for Airplane Category Airman Certification Standards, FAA-S-ACS-25, effective 31 May 2024. The PTS it replaced is no longer the document your examiner is working from.
This page explains what an ACS is, what changed, and how to study to one, because the structure of the document is itself a study plan if you read it properly. For the requirements behind the certificate, see CFI requirements; for the course and the schedule, see CFI training cost and timeline.
What Happened, And When
The FAA has been migrating airman testing from Practical Test Standards to Airman Certification Standards since 2016, certificate by certificate. The flight instructor documents were among the last to move. The current document for airplane instructor ratings is FAA-S-ACS-25, Flight Instructor for Airplane Category, effective 31 May 2024. The instrument rating and commercial pilot airplane ACS documents were revised on the same date.
The practical consequence for a candidate is immediate. A great deal of CFI preparation material online was written against a PTS, and some of it is a decade old. It is not merely dated in its formatting; it omits an entire testing dimension that examiners now assess explicitly.
Why The FAA Changed It
The old system had a structural problem that everybody in training recognized and nobody could fix from inside it.
Knowledge was tested on a written exam, months or years before the practical test, against a question bank that candidates learned to pass rather than to understand. The skills were tested on the checkride against a PTS that specified tolerances. Nothing formally connected the two, and there was no place at all in the system for judgment: an applicant could answer every question correctly, fly every maneuver inside tolerance, and still be somebody you would not want flying your family anywhere.
The ACS closes both gaps. Every knowledge element is coded, and the same codes appear on the knowledge test report and in the practical test standards, so a question you failed in a testing center becomes a topic an examiner is pointed at months later. And risk management is written in as a testable element of each task rather than left to whether a particular examiner happens to ask about it.
For flight instructor applicants this matters more than for anyone else, because an instructor's job is largely risk management performed on someone else's behalf. The candidate who can fly a power-on stall and cannot say what makes teaching one to a nervous student at 3,000 feet over a populated valley different from flying one alone is exactly the candidate the change was designed to catch.
What A PTS Was, And What An ACS Is
A Practical Test Standards document listed tasks and, for each, the objective and the tolerances. It told you what to fly and how accurately. Knowledge was tested separately, on a written exam, and the connection between the two was left implicit.
An Airman Certification Standards document takes the same tasks and breaks each into three explicit element types:
| Element type | What it covers | How it is tested |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge | What you must know about the task: the aerodynamics, the systems, the regulations, the procedures. | In the oral, and on the knowledge test, which is now cross-referenced to the same elements. |
| Risk management | The hazards associated with the task and how you identify, assess and mitigate them. | In the oral, directly. This is the part a PTS did not contain. |
| Skills | What you must be able to do, and to what tolerance. | In the flight, as before. |
Every element carries a unique code, which is the mechanism that ties the whole system together. When you fail a knowledge test question, the report gives you the code of the element you missed, and that code points at a specific line in the ACS. When you take the practical test, the examiner is required to test to those same elements. The written exam, the oral and the flight are no longer three loosely related events.
A Worked Example: One Task, Three Columns
Abstract descriptions of the ACS are less useful than seeing what it does to a single maneuver, so take slow flight, which every instructor candidate has flown hundreds of times.
Under the old system, preparing to teach slow flight meant being able to fly it inside tolerance and explain the aerodynamics. Under the ACS the same task splits into three things you must be ready for separately.
The knowledge column asks what you must understand: the relationship between angle of attack, load factor and stall speed; why the stall speed changes with bank and with weight; what the stall warning system is actually sensing; the aerodynamic effect of flap and power settings; and how each of those is best explained to somebody who has never met the concepts.
The risk management column asks what could go wrong and what you would do about it: an inadvertent stall or spin entry; distraction during the maneuver; collision hazards while the airplane is slow and the nose is high; loss of situational awareness; failing to complete clearing turns; and the hazard specific to instructing, which is a student who freezes on the controls.
The skill column asks what you must demonstrate: flying the maneuver to tolerance from the right seat, demonstrating it while narrating, recognizing and correcting the errors a student would make, and analyzing and correcting a simulated common error the examiner introduces.
Three columns, one maneuver, and only the third of them resembles what the PTS asked for. That is the change, and it is why your lesson plan for slow flight needs three sections rather than one.
The Risk Management Column Is The Real Change
For an instructor candidate this matters more than for anyone else, because instructing is a risk management job. Under a PTS, an examiner might or might not ask what could go wrong during a stall lesson with a nervous student at 3,000 feet over the San Fernando Valley. Under the ACS, that question is a listed element of the task, and you are expected to answer it in structured terms: what the hazard is, how likely it is, how bad the outcome would be, and what you would do to reduce either.
Candidates who prepare only the maneuver and the aerodynamics are surprised by this. Candidates who read each task's risk management elements and write them into their own lesson plans are not.
The Areas Of Operation You Will Be Tested In
The ACS organizes the test around the areas of operation the regulation requires. For an airplane single-engine instructor rating, 14 CFR 61.187(b)(1) lists: fundamentals of instructing; technical subject areas; preflight preparation; a preflight lesson on a maneuver to be performed in flight; preflight procedures; airport and seaplane base operations; takeoffs, landings and go-arounds; fundamentals of flight; performance maneuvers; ground reference maneuvers; slow flight, stalls and spins; basic instrument maneuvers; emergency operations; and postflight procedures.
For the multi-engine instructor rating, 61.187(b)(2) replaces slow flight, stalls and spins with slow flight and stalls, and adds multiengine operations. For the instrument instructor rating, 61.187(b)(7) drops the visual maneuvers entirely and covers air traffic control clearances and procedures, flight by reference to instruments, navigation aids, instrument approach procedures, emergency operations and postflight procedures. Those differences are why the CFII and MEI rides feel like different tests rather than repeats.
How To Study To An ACS
The method that works is mechanical and unglamorous.
- Download the current ACS from faa.gov and check the effective date on the cover. Not a summary, not a third-party rewrite. The FAA document, free.
- Make the tasks your table of contents. One lesson plan per task, in ACS order. That folder is both your study plan and the thing the examiner will ask to see.
- Write the knowledge, risk management and skill elements into each lesson plan verbatim. If an element is in the ACS and not in your lesson plan, you have a hole, and the examiner has a question.
- Cite a source for every element. Regulation, Airplane Flying Handbook, Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, Aviation Instructor's Handbook, advisory circular, or the aircraft flight manual. A CFI who cannot say where an answer comes from will guess in front of a student one day.
- Convert the risk management elements into teaching points. Not a recital. For each one, how would you raise it with a student mid-lesson?
- Practice teaching, out loud, to somebody. Reading a lesson plan silently produces a candidate who knows the material and cannot deliver it. This is the single biggest predictor of a first-time pass.
How Our Twelve Ground Days Map To The ACS
Our flight instructor program runs 50 hours of ground instruction across twelve eight-hour ground days, and the days are organized by ACS area of operation rather than by textbook chapter, for exactly the reason above. Broadly:
| Ground days | What is covered |
|---|---|
| Days 1 to 3 | Fundamentals of instructing: the learning process, human behavior and effective communication, the teaching process, assessment, instructor responsibilities, planning instructional activity. Lesson plan folder started. |
| Days 4 to 6 | Technical subject areas: aeromedical factors, runway incursion avoidance, visual scanning and collision avoidance, principles of flight, aircraft systems, performance and limitations, national airspace system, navigation, aeronautical decision-making. |
| Days 7 to 9 | Teaching the flight maneuvers: preflight and postflight procedures, takeoffs and landings, fundamentals of flight, performance maneuvers, ground reference maneuvers, slow flight, stalls and spins. Whiteboard teaching, common student errors, completion standards. |
| Days 10 to 12 | Emergency operations, basic instrument maneuvers, mock orals with a second instructor, lesson plan review, and the application paperwork. |
Mock orals are run by an instructor who did not train you. A candidate who has only ever been questioned by the person who taught them has never had their explanations genuinely tested.
What To Buy, And What To Ignore
- Buy nothing until you have read the ACS. It is free, and it tells you exactly what the gaps in your own knowledge are.
- The FAA handbooks are free. The Aviation Instructor's Handbook, the Airplane Flying Handbook and the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge are all published on faa.gov as PDFs. They are the sources an examiner expects you to cite.
- Check the edition on anything commercial. A study guide that does not mention the ACS on its cover was written for a different test.
- Pre-written lesson plans are a trap. Use one as a template if you must, then rewrite every line in your own words. Examiners ask follow-up questions precisely to find out whether you wrote it.
- The knowledge test codes are a study tool. After the written, work through every code on your report and find the matching ACS element. Those are the exact areas the examiner is required to cover in the oral.
Related Reading
- CFI requirements — the full ladder under 14 CFR 61.183.
- CFI training cost and timeline — the four-week schedule and what it costs.
- CFII rating — the instrument instructor areas of operation.
- Multi-engine instructor (MEI) rating — the multiengine operations area of operation.
- CFI spin endorsement — the 61.183(i) requirement and the retest rule.
- FAA checkride: what to expect — how the day runs.
CFI ACS And PTS FAQ
Is There Still A CFI PTS?
Not for the airplane category. Flight instructor practical tests are conducted to the Flight Instructor for Airplane Category Airman Certification Standards, FAA-S-ACS-25, effective 31 May 2024. Study material written against a PTS is superseded.
What Is The Difference Between An ACS And A PTS?
A PTS listed tasks with objectives and tolerances. An ACS breaks every task into knowledge, risk management and skill elements, each with a unique code that links the knowledge test, the oral and the flight into one system.
When Did The CFI ACS Take Effect?
31 May 2024. The instrument rating and commercial pilot airplane ACS documents were revised on the same date.
Where Do I Get The CFI ACS?
Free from faa.gov. Download it directly rather than relying on a reprint, and check the effective date on the cover before you study from it.
What Are The Risk Management Elements?
Listed hazards associated with each task, which you are expected to identify, assess and explain how to mitigate. They are tested directly in the oral, and they are the part that a PTS did not contain.
Does The ACS Change The Areas Of Operation?
No. The areas of operation are set by 14 CFR 61.187(b) and the ACS is organized around them. What the ACS changes is how each task within them is specified and tested.
Do I Still Need Written Lesson Plans?
Yes, and they are more useful than ever. Building one lesson plan per ACS task, with the knowledge, risk management and skill elements written in, produces both your study plan and the folder the examiner will ask to see.
Are The CFII And MEI Tested To The Same Document?
The FAA publishes one flight instructor ACS for the airplane category. The areas of operation differ by rating under 14 CFR 61.187(b), so confirm with your examiner which areas apply to the rating you are adding.
Study It With Us
Our flight instructor program is built around the current ACS, runs about four weeks full time, and covers CFI, CFII and MEI for $15,400. Ground instruction on its own is $110 an hour if you are training elsewhere and want mock orals with an instructor who has not taught you. Book a free consultation or call (818) 330-1318 any day from 9 AM to 9 PM. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406, on Van Nuys Airport.