CFI Notebook
CFI Notebook
The Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) Notebook provides "Higher" education, bridging the gap between flight training and the airplane, enhancing your aeronautical experience with articles, multimedia, lessons, and references.
Get into it by reading our notebook articles or following along with our lesson plans.
Review the CFI Notebook
The CFI Notebook is an instructor's guide to navigating the sea of resources to provide helpful guidance for their students and themselves. Our notebook aims to enhance pilots' aeronautical knowledge by explaining various topics and referencing their sources to enable further learning.
Instructors recall this knowledge when building lesson plans. More important than knowledge is connecting the topics so that the student can appreciate the "why" behind the facts.
CFI Lesson Plans
Trivia of the Day
Trivia rolls over daily at midnight, Mountain Standard Time.
Private Pilot Question of the Day
How should a helicopter pilot assess and manage terminating an autorotation?
The pilot should identify, assess, and mitigate terminating an autorotation. Identify, assess, and mitigate the risks associated with the task.
Commercial Pilot Question of the Day
What are the usual lateral and lower vertical limits of the Class C shelf?
The shelf usually extends from the 5-nautical-mile core boundary to a 10-nautical-mile radius, with a floor no lower than 1,200 feet above the surface. Each Class C area is individually tailored.
Instrument Rating Question of the Day
What is the primary control for forecast icing beyond the capability or approval of the airplane?
Avoid the conditions by route, altitude, or time, with a verified escape and alternate.
Sport Pilot Question of the Day
Which sources should a seaplane pilot use to locate a seaplane base and verify whether it is suitable for the planned operation?
Use current aeronautical charts to locate it, then verify facilities, communications, remarks, restrictions, and status with the Chart Supplement or current facility data, NOTAMs, and the operator or local authority when needed.
Flight Instructor Question of the Day
What is transfer of learning?
Transfer is the influence of prior learning on performance in a new situation. Positive transfer helps when underlying relationships are similar; negative transfer interferes when an old habit or assumption is inappropriate.
Flight Instructor Instrument Question of the Day
Question unavailable.
Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Question of the Day
How should a remote pilot mitigate mechanical failures in an sUAS system?
Use scheduled inspection and maintenance, current firmware and approved parts, battery health and charge checks, propeller and structure inspections, secure connections, controller and display checks, preflight functional tests, conservative replacement limits, and documented corrective action for discrepancies.
Advice of the Day
Maintain a consistent flight training schedule. Long breaks in any kind of training, but especially aviation, will cause a dramatic loss of progress.
System of the Day
Cabin Heating and Cooling Systems: Cabin Heating and cooling systems provide conditioned air for comfortable operations during various weather conditions
Maneuver of the Day
Taxiing: Aircraft must taxi, that is conducting surface movement under its own power, as part of ground operations in support of flight.
Emergency of the Day
Engine Failure: The total loss of power requires immediate actions which depend upon speed (life) and altitude (life insurance)
Mishap of the Day
ERA14LA450: The NTSB determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be: The pilot's inadequate preflight planning, which resulted in a takeoff with the airplane's center of gravity aft of its limit and led the airplane to exceed its critical angle of attack and experience an aerodynamic stall during the initial climb.
