CFI checkride and the fundamentals of instructing
Two written examinations, one very long practical test, and a change of seat that alters everything. This page explains why the instructor checkride is the hardest one most pilots take, and what the fundamentals of instructing actually cover.
Why is the CFI checkride considered the hardest one?
Because it is the first test where flying the airplane correctly earns you nothing on its own. Every earlier practical test asks whether you can perform a manoeuvre. This one asks whether you can teach it, to somebody who cannot yet do it, while remaining legally responsible for the aircraft.
Three things change at once and they compound. You move to the right seat, where the sight picture, the trim and the control feel are all subtly wrong. You start narrating rather than concentrating, which halves the attention available for the flying. And you become the pilot in command of a flight in which somebody else is deliberately doing things badly.
The oral portion changes too. Earlier orals test whether you know something. This one tests whether you can explain it in a way that produces understanding, and an examiner will play a student who has misunderstood in a specific way and wait to see whether you notice.
A useful reframe, and the one most candidates find helpful. The examiner is not looking for a pilot who can also talk. They are looking for an instructor who can also fly, and those are different orders of priority.
What are the two knowledge tests for a flight instructor?
14 CFR 61.183 requires both. Paragraph (e) sends you to a test on the areas at 61.185(a)(1), which are the fundamentals of instructing. Paragraph (f) sends you to a second one covering the aeronautical knowledge areas at 61.185(a)(2) and (a)(3).
The fundamentals of instructing, and the endorsement before it
Paragraph (d) comes first in the sequence: an authorized instructor endorses your logbook on the fundamentals of instructing. Only then does paragraph (e) send you to the test on those same areas.
The subject matter is education rather than aviation, and that catches people out. It covers how people learn and why they stop learning, how a lesson is planned and sequenced, how a skill is taught in stages, how performance is evaluated, and how an instructor's own professionalism and judgement affect a student.
Pilots frequently underestimate this examination precisely because none of it is about flying. It is the one written test in the whole sequence where prior flying experience gives you no advantage at all.
- The learning process, and what obstructs it
- The teaching process and lesson planning
- Teaching a skill in stages
- Evaluation, critique and assessment
- Instructor responsibilities and professionalism
- Human behaviour and effective communication
The aeronautical knowledge test
The second test covers the aeronautical knowledge areas at 61.185(a)(2) and (a)(3) — the subject matter of the certificate and rating you will be teaching toward, examined at the level required to teach it rather than to hold it.
This is a familiar-feeling test with an unfamiliar standard. You have met the material before, on the private, instrument and commercial written examinations. What changes is that a correct answer is no longer sufficient, because the practical test will ask you to explain why the other three answers are wrong.
Timing, and the clock most people forget
Under 14 CFR 61.39(a) a knowledge test must have been passed inside the 24 calendar months that precede your application for the practical test, and the instructor's training endorsement has to fall inside two calendar months of that same application.
With two written examinations in play, that first clock is worth watching. Passing the fundamentals test early and then spending eighteen months assembling the flying is a recognised way to arrive at a checkride with an expired result.
What does the practical test actually cover?
The areas of operation at 14 CFR 61.187(b), which differ by rating. Paragraph (a) also requires flight and ground training from an authorized instructor across those areas, with a logbook endorsement certifying you are proficient to pass a practical test on them.
Airplane single-engine, 61.187(b)(1)
Fourteen areas of operation, opening with the fundamentals of instructing and technical subject areas before any flying appears at all.
- Opens withFundamentals of instructing
- ThenTechnical subject areas
- Ground elementPreflight preparation, preflight lesson on a manoeuvre
- IncludesSlow flight, stalls, and spins
- AlsoPerformance and ground reference manoeuvres
- TotalFourteen areas
Airplane multiengine, 61.187(b)(2)
Fifteen areas. Two differences from the single-engine list are worth knowing before you plan a multiengine instructor rating.
- Extra areaMultiengine operations
- Changed areaSlow flight and stalls, without spins
- Everything elseBroadly as the single-engine list
- TotalFifteen areas
What that difference tells you
The single-engine instructor rating carries spins in its areas of operation; the multiengine one does not, and adds asymmetric work instead. It is a small textual difference with a large practical consequence for how each course is flown.
- Spin endorsementStill required under 61.183(i) for airplane ratings
- Aircraft neededOne certificated for spins
- Multiengine focusTeaching engine-out handling from the right seat
- Where that is coveredThe CFII and MEI page
How does an instructor practical test run?
Long. Plan for a full day and be unsurprised if it becomes two. The oral portion alone often outlasts a whole private pilot practical test.
Documents and eligibility
Logbook endorsements, both knowledge test reports, the medical certificate and the completed application. 14 CFR 61.39(a) wants the test results inside 24 calendar months and the training endorsement inside two, and this is where a missed clock ends the day before it starts.
The oral, part one: the fundamentals
How people learn, how a lesson is built, how a skill is taught in stages, how you would recognise and correct a specific misunderstanding. Expect to be asked to teach something on a whiteboard rather than to describe how you would teach it.
The oral, part two: technical subjects, taught
Aerodynamics, systems, weather, performance and regulations, delivered as lessons rather than as answers. The examiner will pick the subjects and will frequently pick the ones you would not have chosen.
The preflight lesson and the flight
A briefed lesson on a manoeuvre, then the flight itself from the right seat, teaching each manoeuvre aloud while flying it accurately. The examiner will often fly it wrongly on purpose and wait to see whether you catch it and how you correct it.
Spins, or the endorsement that stands in for them
Under 61.183(i)(1) an examiner may take the spin endorsement as evidence that you are instructionally proficient across stall awareness, spin entries, spins and recoveries. That acceptance is withdrawn where the test is a retest arising from a deficiency in those exact areas, in which case the demonstration happens.
What does preparing for the CFI checkride cost?
There is no standalone published price for instructor training on this site, and this page is not going to invent one. The instructor certificate sits inside the $89,000 career track; both knowledge test fees and the examiner's fee are paid by you directly.
Airline Career Track
Zero hours through to a commercial certificate with an instructor rating on top. Preparation for this checkride is inside it.
- ✓Private, instrument, commercial, multi, instructor
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Nothing repriced at a phase boundary
Commercial Pilot License
The prerequisite under 61.183(c). Without it the instructor checkride is not reachable at any price.
- ✓250 hours behind it, per 61.129(a)
- ✓Instrument rating alongside
- ✓The certificate the rating sits on
Redbird MCX session
Useful for rehearsing the narration. Teaching a manoeuvre aloud while flying it is a skill, and practising it on the ground costs less.
- ✓Full-motion and fully enclosed
- ✓Never cancelled for weather
- ✓Weak on landings, and we say so
Assessment flight
An hour of dual instruction, if the commercial certificate is still ahead of you rather than behind you.
- ✓Sixty minutes of dual instruction
- ✓Loggable time
- ✓Credited whole if you enrol inside a day
What makes instructor checkride preparation real?
Being taught by people who teach for a living, in more than one airframe, at a field where the flying happens on the day it was booked.
Instructors who do this job daily
Each holds a commercial certificate or an ATP, with a flight instructor certificate above it and a medical in date. On flights they teach, each is legally the pilot in command. A candidate learning to instruct benefits from watching people instruct badly-behaving students all week.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23Types to teach a lesson in
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. Teaching the same manoeuvre in two airframes exposes what you actually understand about it.
Owned and maintained in-houseCalendar months a knowledge test result stays usable
14 CFR 61.39(a) requires the test to have been passed within the preceding 24 calendar months at the time you apply for the practical test. Two written examinations means two clocks.
14 CFR 61.39(a)Hours of flight training an instructor may give in a day
14 CFR 61.195(a) caps it, and it is worth knowing before you build a career plan on instructing. It also shapes how much of an instructor's day a candidate can realistically observe.
14 CFR 61.195(a)Published pass rates for this checkride
None here. This test has a reputation for being demanding and we are not going to attach a number to that reputation, ours or anybody else's, because we do not have a defensible one.
Stated rather than impliedWhat we will not tell you about this test
How likely you are to pass it. This checkride is widely described as demanding, and that description is not a statistic. We publish no pass rate for it, and any school quoting one for a rating this small in volume is quoting noise rather than evidence.
We can tell you what the areas of operation are, what the two knowledge tests cover and how we prepare candidates for both. The outcome belongs to a designated pilot examiner on the day, measured against the Airman Certification Standards, and no school controls it.
Training happens at Van Nuys Airport under part 61. This is not an airline, it is not owned by one, and there is no cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring relationship with any carrier. Nothing on this page offers an interview, a job or a salary.
What people ask about the instructor practical test
The areas of operation at 14 CFR 61.187(b) for the rating sought — fourteen of them for airplane single-engine, fifteen for airplane multiengine — delivered as instruction rather than as performance. It opens with the fundamentals of instructing and technical subject areas, both examined on the ground, before any flying begins.
The educational subject matter listed at 14 CFR 61.185(a)(1): how people learn, what obstructs learning, how a lesson is planned and sequenced, how a skill is taught in stages, how performance is evaluated and critiqued, and the instructor's own professional responsibilities. 61.183(e) makes it a separate knowledge test.
Two. 61.183(e) covers the fundamentals of instructing areas at 61.185(a)(1); 61.183(f) covers the aeronautical knowledge areas at 61.185(a)(2) and (a)(3). Before the first of them, 61.183(d) requires a logbook endorsement on the fundamentals from an authorized instructor.
Because most of it is ground instruction that has to be delivered rather than recited. The examiner picks technical subjects and asks you to teach them, then flies as a student who is making a specific mistake. A full day is normal and two days is not unusual.
Not usually. 61.183(i)(1) lets an examiner take a logbook endorsement of competence and instructional proficiency — stall awareness, spin entries, spins, recoveries — in place of a demonstration. That acceptance does not apply where the test is a retest caused by a deficiency in those same areas.
Yes, and it is a larger adjustment than most candidates expect. The sight picture, the trim references and the hand you fly with all change, and you are narrating a lesson at the same time. Practising from the right seat early is the single most useful thing a candidate can do.
The 24 calendar months that precede your application for the practical test, under 14 CFR 61.39(a). The same paragraph requires the instructor's endorsement covering the training to fall within two calendar months of the application, so both ends of the timeline matter.
Plays a student. Expect deliberate errors, questions asked at inconvenient moments, and manoeuvres flown slightly wrongly to see whether you notice and how you intervene. You remain legally pilot in command throughout, which is part of what is being assessed.
For pilots, usually yes, because none of it is about flying. Prior flight experience gives no advantage on the 61.185(a)(1) material, which is educational theory: learning, teaching, lesson planning and evaluation. It is the one written test in the sequence where a low-time and a high-time pilot start level.
The single-engine list at 61.187(b)(1) has fourteen areas and includes slow flight, stalls and spins. The multiengine list at 61.187(b)(2) has fifteen, replaces that area with slow flight and stalls, and adds multiengine operations. The spin endorsement under 61.183(i) still applies to airplane ratings either way.
The flight instructor cluster
Try teaching one manoeuvre aloud and see how it goes
The fastest way to understand this checkride is to fly one hour and narrate a single manoeuvre while you do it. Most pilots are surprised by how much attention the talking costs. The hour is loggable and enrolling inside a day takes the fee off the program.
Fly the aeroplane once, then decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →