Pass Your Private Pilot Oral Exam - ACS Breakdown Part 2 - Airworthiness

[Music] Welcome to the OnCenterline Podcast, a show where we discuss the trials and tribulations of learning to fly from both the student and flight instructor perspectives. We feature real aviators in all different chapters of their careers, talking about the things we all deal with, but rarely discuss. To join us as we take on the challenges, hardships and celebrations that pave the runway to be in a professional aviator as we strive to stay on centerline. [Music] Hey everybody, welcome back. I hope you're all doing well out there and depending on where you are in the country, I hope you're enjoying some late summer weather into this fall season. We are here in the Pacific Northwest, so we're soaking that up while it lasts. But today we're going to continue on with my series on the Private Pilot ACS, where we're going through section by section breaking down every single line item so that you will have no problem on the oral portion of your checkride. This week we talked about part one task A, pilot qualifications, and you can find that episode in the episode history on the channel. But this week we're talking about task B, airworthiness requirements. Now last week I mentioned that I love the pave acronym because the pave acronym, we're talking about pilot, aircraft, environment and external pressures. The pave acronym can be used for so much and actually can be used as a framework for your oral portion of the checkride and get you through about 90% of that oral portion. 90% of the oral portion of the checkride will fall under some part of the pave acronym. And today we're focusing in on the A, the aircraft. And what makes the aircraft airworthy? So like I mentioned the pave acronym is the acronym to rule all other acronyms and it definitely lives up to that description when it comes to the aircraft because underneath the A for aircraft we are going to be talking about arrow, av8s, A tomato flames and just your general pre-flight actions. So lots of acronyms today. Alright as always in the ACS we have the references listed at the top of the page. These are the documents in which you can find the information that everything we're going to be talking about can be found. Next we have the objective and the objective for this part is to determine that the applicant exhibits satisfactory knowledge, risk management and skills associated with airworthiness requirements including airplane certificates. Moving on from there we've got quite a few knowledge items to cover today. As a matter of fact most of what we're going to be talking about is strictly knowledge information. And then we'll talk about the skills and risk management portions as well. Alright so let's dive into it. First line item under knowledge just simply states general airworthiness requirements and compliance for airplanes including and then we move on to letter A. Certificate location and expiration dates. Alright so for certificate locations and expiration dates this is going to fall under our arrow acronym. Our arrow acronym describes the documents that are required to be on board the aircraft at all times in order to make that aircraft airworthy. So A is for airworthiness, our airworthiness certificate. Let's talk about when does our airworthiness certificate expire? That's one of my favorite questions to ask applicants on their either their pre-solo flight or their mock check rides. When does our airworthiness certificate expire? And oftentimes I'll get blank stairs or they'll be looking for an expiration date and they won't typically find one because there isn't one. And most of the time they can kind of deduce that because there isn't one listed that there isn't one in general. So then my question to them is okay so does that mean our aircraft is always airworthy? And that's when things kind of become hit or miss as far as their depth of knowledge. But we're going to get into that in a little bit. We're not going to jump forward just yet. Let's move on to our next letter in the arrow acronym letter R for registration. Now both our airworthiness certificate and our US registration needs to be kept inside the cockpit in an area that is visible to all occupants of the aircraft. Generally in most GA aircraft you're going to find it somewhere in a little plastic sleeve up against the pilot's leg along the lower part of the fuselage kind of down below where the pilot's legs are. Sometimes you'll have it in the back of the plane, in the baggage area or somewhere in the rear seats along the side of the plane. But they have to be in a place that is visible to all occupants of the aircraft. Now our registration expiration dates recently changed. I believe it was in December of last year December of 2022 and a certain bill was passed. And one of the things that was included in that bill was a change to extend the registrations of aircraft from a three-year time period up to a seven-year time period. So your registrations now are good for seven years. And they did that because coming off of COVID and the pandemic there was so much backlog of registrations. The FAA couldn't keep up and people's registrations were expiring and they weren't able to renew them fast enough. So this was part of the thing that was passed in this bill to help alleviate that pressure to extend it to seven years. At least that's what my understanding is. So seven years is what your registration is good for. The next R in our Aero acronym is for our radio operator certificate. Now as most people know this is not going to be a required document unless you are traveling out of country. If you're going to Canada or Mexico or anywhere else you will need to get a radio operator certificate and have that aboard with you. However for all of us just staying inside the lower 48 states it's not a required document and most of you probably don't have one. All right. The next letter in our Aero acronym is O and there's many interpretations of what this O stands for. A lot of people think it's owner's manual. And while that's not completely inaccurate specifically it is operating limitations and the operating limitations of the aircraft may possibly be found in the owner's manual or POH. But depending on how old your aircraft is that may not necessarily be the case. Also the operating limitations required to be on the aircraft probably extend beyond the things that are in the owner's manual. We're talking about required placards. The placards that are in the aircraft saying things like maybe flight into IMC is prohibited or your defined maneuvering speeds or the category that your aircraft is certified to operate within utility or normal. These are all placards that show operating limitations. And specifically when we're talking about owner's manuals we are talking about the approved flight manual, the AFM. And the AFM is a document that is certified by the FAA to go with a certain aircraft. Now these days the AFM is a part of the POH generally. And it will say so. It will say it has the FAA approved performance and limitations in this manual. So usually having that POH is adequate. However, back in the day, back in maybe the 50s and before, the AFM was a separate document than the pilot operating handbook. And therefore it wasn't the POH you really needed to have with you. It was the AFM and you need to have those operating limitations available. This also includes any supplemental operating limitations for supplemental pieces of equipment. These would be things like your STCs when you have any piece of new equipment added to an airplane after it is originally certified. Every airplane gets certified with a certain types of equipment and for certain purposes. And all of that is included on what's called the Type Certificate Data Sheet, the TCDS. Anytime you add a piece of equipment to the aircraft after that original certification, you need to have a supplement to that type certificate data sheet. is your supplemental type certificate. This supplemental type certificate states that this piece of equipment is certified to go with this specific aircraft and it has the serial numbers of the aircraft listed on it and usually a serial number for the piece of equipment if applicable to. And beyond that, if the piece of equipment changes the performance or limitations of that aircraft, usually the STC will have that updated information of how that changes the maybe gross weight of the aircraft or the performance numbers of that aircraft. In addition, if the piece of equipment requires an operating manual of its own, you need to make sure you have that operation manual. So for instance, a GPS that gets put into the aircraft, you need to have the owner's manual for that GPS with the aircraft. So it can get very messy as we continue to get new things in our airplanes and technology keeps progressing. You have to not only have all the original stuff for the airplane, but every new piece of equipment that goes in, you have to have those operating limitations and those owners manuals and all that documentation. All right, and then finally, the W in our arrow acronym is weight and balance. We need to have the most recent updated weight and balance information for that airplane. It is not adequate or sufficient to use the original weight and balance information that you might have in the POH for your aircraft unless that aircraft has never, ever been updated or supplemented with new equipment. Every single time a new piece of equipment gets added or an old piece of equipment gets taken out of an airplane, it needs a new weight and balance updated. So you need to make sure you have the most recent, the most applicable weight and balance document for your airplane. All right, so that about covers it for the required documents that we need to have in the aircraft. Then moving on to letter B, it says required inspections and airplane logbook documentation. So this is where our AV8s acronym comes into play. And we've talked about these acronyms before on the podcast in previous episodes, but we're going to take a little bit of a deeper dive into this and get into the details a bit. All right, so going back to our airworthiness certificate, we talked about the fact that it doesn't ever expire as long as the aircraft is kept in an airworthy condition. And that means meeting the requirements of all these inspections. So AV8s, the A, the first day in AV8s is for annual. The annual inspection is the one inspection that every aircraft, no matter what it is, needs to go through every single year. Just like you might go to your primary care physician for your annual checkup. The annual inspection is good for 12 calendar months, meaning if it's done, say today is October 20th that I'm recording this. And if the annual inspection on your airplane was done today, it would be good for the next 12 calendar months, meaning it would expire after October 31st, the following year, October 31st in 2024 in this case, which happens to be Halloween because it's very scary when your airplane is on airworthy. All right, so moving on, the V and AV8s is for VOR. Now the VOR is only required if you are using it under IFR conditions as one of your primary sources of navigation. But the VOR needs to be inspected every 30 days. And that can be done by the pilot and command. And there are a number of ways you can check a VOR. No, we're not going to get into the details of that right now because we're just talking private pilots. And we'll talk about that more perhaps in the instrument pilot section when we get there. But basically there's ground checks and there's air checks and you just need to make sure that when you're dialing up a certain radial from a certain station that there's a minimum amount of deviation. All right, so VOR every 30 days. The I and AV8s is a little tricky because it's actually a one, a one for 100 hour. The 100 hour inspection is only required if you are operating for higher. If you are not operating for higher, that 100 hour is not required. However, depending on the plane you're flying, say if you're flying basically any Sezna, there are other things that are going to be required every 100 hours. And that brings us to our next letter in the acronym. The next A is airworthiness directives, our A, D's. And airworthiness directive is a directive put forth by the FAA, saying that a certain piece of equipment needs to have something done to it or needs to be inspected for a certain condition. Either once there are types of A, D's that need to be just done once and never again. And then there are recurring A, D's. One's that need to be done repeatedly at certain time intervals. And there are many out there, especially for Sezna's, that need to be done every 100 hours. So while your aircraft might not actually need 100 hour inspection, it's very likely that it might have a recurring airworthiness directive that needs to be done every 100 hours. So that would need to be complied with in order to maintain airworthiness. Our next letter is T, and that stands for transponder. Now, a transponder is not required equipment for all flight. And so technically, if you were not flying in a certain airspace or under certain conditions where a transponder would be required, even if your transponder wasn't inspected within the 24 calendar months that it needs to be inspected, you could still technically fly. Now, under those conditions, you would have to follow your inoperative equipment procedures, which we will get to here, and basically put that transponder out of service. But you could still fly. However, most of us, most of the time, are going to be flying in air spaces and in ways that we either are required to have a transponder or that we would like to have a transponder. So we need to make sure that transponder is inspected every 24 calendar months. Our next letter is E, and that is for ELT. Our ELT needs to be inspected every 12 calendar months. And this is typically done with the annual, since that also needs to be done every 12 calendar months. Now, there's often confusion when it comes to the ELT, as to the difference between the inspection required per 91 207 every 12 calendar months, and when the battery needs to be replaced on the ELT. The battery inspection and replacement, which needs to be done any time the transmitter has been operated for a cumulative time of one hour or more. Or when the battery has met its 50% of useful life, that is completely separate from the inspection that needs to be conducted every 12 calendar months. So E is the ELT, and it needs to be inspected every 12 calendar months, and that inspection will include checking the battery to see if it needs to be replaced. But other than that, there are other things that are being checked during that inspection, rather than just replacing the battery. All right, and then finally the S in aviates. The S is static system. Now, static system is mostly pertaining to the altimeter. We're looking at the altimeter, making sure that it is calibrated correctly and that it's operational. And then also that the static system that feeds the altimeter, its information is operating correctly. Now the static system needs to be inspected once every 24 calendar months. And as a result, usually that static system inspection is done at the same time as the transponder inspection. So in summary, A is the annual, which is done every 12 calendar months, and usually includes the ELT inspection, which is also done every 12 calendar months. V is the VOR, which is done every 30 days if you are flying under IFR with VOR as a primary source of navigation. I is a number one for 100 hour inspection, which only needs to be done if you are operating for higher. A is for ADs, airworthiness directives, which could be either one-offs or recurring. And then T is transponder, which is done with the static system every 24 calendar months. When it comes to maintenance logbook records, we're looking at part 91 for 17. Now I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of this. Basically what you need to know is that anytime anything is done to any airplane, a record of it needs to be made. And if we look here in 91 for 17, which is maintenance records, the main things that you just need to know is that when it comes to recording maintenance done, you need to record a description of the work performance. You need to have the date of completion of the work performed and it needs to have the signature and certificate number of the person approving the aircraft for return to service. There's a lot more information in there that you are encouraged and welcome to go read through. But as long as you know that maintenance records is in 91 417, you can certainly look up anything you need to straight from the source there. Moving on to our next line item, it kind of overlaps with what we were just talking about. This is referring to airworthiness directives and special airworthiness information bulletins. So going back to ADs again, airworthiness directives are directives put forth by the FAA that are regulatory in nature. They are enforceable and they basically say that your aircraft is not going to be airworthy unless it is in compliance with this directive. Once again, there are one off ADs out there where something just needs to be inspected or or addressed once and then there are recurring ADs where it needs to be done repeatedly at different time intervals. A special airworthiness information bulletin is just a notice that's put out by the FAA. It is not required or is not regulatory but it is put out by the FAA to inform owners and operators of a certain condition or problem that may arise that they may want to have inspected or addressed. Service bulletins are put out by manufacturers and there are different levels of service bulletins, some that are just kind of advisory in nature, others that are more immediate and severe that require immediate action or service. Moving on to the next line item is Purpose and Procedure for obtaining a special flight permit. What is a special flight permit used for? Well, there may come a time where your aircraft falls out of airworthiness, whether it goes past an expiration date for an annual or a piece of equipment that is required for flight breaks and you are not at a location or in a position to get it fixed. Well, you'll need to be able to move that aircraft somewhere to where it can be fixed or where the maintenance can be conducted. And in order to do that, you'll need to apply for and receive a special flight permit or often as we call them fairy permits in order to move an unairworthy aircraft to a location where it can become airworthy again. So while we're not going to dive into all the specifics, the basic procedure for doing that is to contact your local FISDO, that's the flight standards district office. I believe they actually even have a form online that you'd fill out, but you'd submit this form to the FISDO with a sign off from an A&P mechanic or an IA mechanic stating that the aircraft is safe to be flown under its current condition. And then the FISDO would issue you this special flight permit, this fairy permit stating that you are allowed to fly from this point A to that point B with no stops, no passengers, no one except required crew members on board and only on this date at this time. It's very restrictive in what you're able to do. And therefore, as a result, you want to be very specific in what you're requesting to be able to do when you submit the paperwork for this fairy permit. But that is your special flight permit process in a nutshell. All right, moving along, we're going to the next line item of pilot-performed preventative maintenance. Now, there's a lot that goes into this and unless you're an aircraft owner, you're probably not going to be doing much of this stuff yourself anyway. So while we're not going to dive too much into the details, we are going to cover it on a surface level, which again is all you're really going to need to know for a check right purpose. But this is all covered underneath part 43 of the FARs. And realistically, as long as you can remember part 43, that's going to more or less cover everything you need to know. So taking a look at part 43, this is 43.3 persons authorized to perform maintenance, preventative maintenance, rebuilding and alterations. And if we go down to paragraph GE, GE is engulf, it says, except for holders of a sport pilot certificate, the holder of a pilot certificate issued under part 61 may perform preventative maintenance on any aircraft owned or operated by that pilot, which is not used under part 121-129-135 of this chapter. Now, what is defined as preventative maintenance? So for that, we're going to scroll through part 43 a bit more. We're going to go to appendix A and under appendix A, paragraph C, Charlie, we can read that it states preventative maintenance is limited to the following work provided. It does not involve complex assembly operations. So things you can do under preventative maintenance would be one removal installation and repair of landing gear tires. So you could actually change the tires on your aircraft if you felt comfortable doing so replacing elastic shock absorber cords on landing gear servicing landing gear shock struts servicing landing gear wheel bearings. The list goes on and on here guys. I'm not going to read through all of it, but that's where you'd find the list of what qualifies as preventative maintenance. All right, part 43 appendix A paragraph C, Charlie. All right, moving on, we now are talking about equipment requirements for day and night via far flight. So this is where our beloved A tomato flames comes into play. All right, a tomato flames, one of the longer acronyms, we all struggle to memorize and our initial pilot training. But again, this goes back to part 91 205 and as long as you can remember part 91 205, you don't necessarily need to commit to memory every single letter of A tomato flames. What you do need to know is what equipment specific to you and your airplane is required for day and night via far because while eight tomato flames is an all encompassing type of acronym, much of that equipment may not be even in your plane to begin with. So you need to know the things that are applicable to you and your aircraft and you need to know that if you had any questions about it, you would look at part 91 205. Our next line item is sub part A here and it says flying with in operative equipment. So basically, there are three main things that need to be done when you have a piece of an operative equipment that is not required for the operation of flight that you're about to undertake. And those three things are first either disabling or removing the piece of equipment that is an operative assuming you cannot remove it or are not going to remove it, you need to placard it as an operative. And then any maintenance that's involved with the deactivation or removal of that piece of equipment needs to be properly logged in the aircraft logbooks and signed off. This could be as simple as a landing light that's gone out or maybe a whole radio that's not working. But as long as it's not required for the type of flight you're doing, you can address it through this process and still be airworthy to fly. Next line item talks about using an approved minimum equipment list. Now most of us out there in the G.A. world don't deal with minimum equipment list. It's more of a part 135-121 procedure where a certain aircraft will have a certain minimum equipment list stating the minimum equipment required to fly that aircraft from point A to point B when it has something broken in order to be serviced. If you have something broken in the aircraft you would look at the minimum equipment list assuming the minimum equipment list says that the aircraft can be flown it will tell you what needs to happen in order for that aircraft to continue to be flown and any restrictions that are applied for that aircraft to be flown. And then it's only used to basically get that airplane to a point where it can be serviced and have that piece of equipment fixed. Kinds of operation equipment list some of you might have a kinds of operation equipment list in your P.O.H. if you have a newer aircraft. And that's simply referring to different kinds of operation. It could be as simple as daytime versus nighttime or VFR versus IFR. But it will have a list of equipment required for a certain kind of operation. All right, our final line item is required discrepancy records or placards. And again, this goes back to part 43, a lot of what we were just talking about. But specifically part 43.11, 43.11, paragraph B listing of discrepancies and placards. And I'll just read it straight from the book here for you basically it's saying if a person performing any inspection required by part 91 or 125 of this chapter finds that the aircraft is un-airworthy or does not meet the applicable type certificate data, airworthy initiatives or other approved data upon which the aircraft can be flown. which its airworthiness depends, that person must give the owner or less see a signed and dated list of those discrepancies. So basically you take your plane to a mechanic and the mechanic finds that these things are not airworthy. They're not operable, they don't meet the airworthiness directives, whatever the case is. They have to provide a list to you as the owner of what those discrepancies are. And then they have to go placard the inoperative components in the cockpit and do all the things we just talked about with the inoperative equipment by either removing it or disabling it and then making the appropriate records in the aircraft logbooks. All right, so that covers all of the knowledge items on this page of the ACS. Moving on to the risk management, it just says the applicant demonstrates the ability to identify, assess and mitigate risks, encompassing inoperative equipment discovered prior to flight. All right, so you're expected to know what inoperative equipment you are allowed to fly with, how to handle that inoperative equipment, again, with the placarding, the disabling, the removing, the logbook entries, and also just how that inoperative piece of equipment may affect your flight. You know, just because a piece of equipment is not required, doesn't mean that you haven't grown reliant upon it for safe flight. And if it's something that you're used to having there and you're used to using, and then all of a sudden it's not there, that can create an unsafe situation. So you want to be sure to kind of know your own habits and practices and know that just because it may be legal for you to fly with that piece of equipment inoperative doesn't necessarily make it safe for you to do so. The skills you're expected to demonstrate, it says the applicant demonstrates the ability to locate and describe airplane airworthiness and registration information, determine the airplane is airworthy in a scenario given by the evaluator, and finally apply appropriate procedures for operating with inoperative equipment in a scenario given by the evaluator. Okay, so like always, this is not going to be just a straight up question and answer type session with your check write examiner. He's going to be giving you a real world situation. He's gonna say something like, hey, you walk out to your airplane and while you're beginning your pre-flight, turning on the lights, putting the flaps down, you notice this liquid that's coming down the panel and you trace it back up and you see this liquid has come out of your compass, your wet compass and all the liquid is drained. Are you gonna be able to connect this flight? So from there you'll have to talk about the fact that the compass is a required piece of equipment according to 91-205, you wouldn't be able to fly, or he might give you an example where he says, hey, you walk out to your aircraft and the landing light is burnt out. Will you be able to fly? And you say, well, yes, even if it's a night flight, that landing light is only required if you're operating for hire, but then you want to talk about the fact that, well, how proficient are you with landing at night without a landing light? When was the last time you practiced that? Have you ever practiced it? How comfortable do you feel not being able to see the runway as you come down and round out over that pavement? So that's part of the risk management and assuming you do feel comfortable conducting that flight or maybe it's a daytime flight so you really feel comfortable without the landing light, what are the required steps necessary to market an operative and legally fly with that piece of an operative equipment? So guys, that about covers it for air within its requirements. I hope this has been helpful for you and please be sure to follow the podcast next week or it might be a couple weeks because our next section is weather information and one look at the ACS will show you that weather information is a long list of information. It's probably one of the most in-depth parts of any checkride and certainly one of the most in-depth areas of knowledge that you as a pilot needs to become familiar and proficient with. So we'll be working on weather information. We may break it up into two episodes because there's so much to cover but I really appreciate you spending the time with me here today and we will see you next time on center line. (upbeat music) [MUSIC]