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
Under 14 CFR 91.137, which emergency, law-enforcement, firefighting, and disaster-relief flights may operate within the restricted area, and what coordination is required?
Section 91.137 allows directed response aircraft, law-enforcement flights, and qualifying relief, news-media, or other authorized operations. Meet the applicable NOTAM's identification, flight-plan, ATC, and incident-command coordination requirements.
Commercial Pilot Question of the Day
After landing at the pickup airport and parking safely, your outbound VFR plan remains active. You can contact Flight Service. Your friend assumes the landing closed it. What must you do before moving on to the pickup and return planning?
Close the outbound VFR plan with Flight Service and confirm that the action is complete.
Instrument Rating Question of the Day
What does a blue T-route designator identify on an FAA low-altitude en route chart, and what navigation equipment is required?
It identifies a low-altitude RNAV route available to appropriately approved GPS or GPS/WAAS-equipped aircraft; Alaska GNSS T-routes require GPS/WAAS equipment.
Sport Pilot Question of the Day
Which statement correctly describes how to complete an aircraft-specific engine-shutdown sequence?
Use the AFM/POH shutdown checklist, including the aircraft-specific power, avionics, electrical, fuel or mixture, and ignition sequence; do not substitute a memorized sequence from another model.
Flight Instructor Question of the Day
What are important advantages of discussion-based instruction?
Discussion actively involves learners, exposes their reasoning, draws on group experience, provides immediate feedback, and lets learners learn from one another. It requires time, preparation, skillful guidance, and control of scope.
Flight Instructor Instrument Question of the Day
What is a learning theory?
A learning theory is an organized body of principles used to explain how people acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Instructors use learning theories as practical guides, not as one universal explanation for every learner or task.
Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Question of the Day
At the same true airspeed, aircraft configuration, and drag coefficient, how does higher density altitude affect aerodynamic drag?
At unchanged true airspeed, configuration, and drag coefficient, lower density produces less aerodynamic drag. This does not mean drag is automatically lower in an actual operation where true airspeed changes.
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
Steep Turns: Steep Turns develops the ability to recognize changes in aircraft flight characteristics and control effectiveness at steep turn angles.
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.
