Kenny Keller explains that flight instructor certification now uses the Airman Certification Standards (ACS), which replaced the Practical Test Standards (PTS) on May 31, 2024. He emphasizes that the ACS closely mirrors the PTS, is essential for preparing students and passing CFI checkrides, and instructors should use the ACS checklist (page 19, section 7) before tests.
All right, future flight instructors, you're here. In the CFI course. We are now using the Airman certification standards. So for many, many years, we use something called the practical test standards. They've now, as of May 31, 2024, we've switched to the Airman certification standards. So it hasn't changed that much for if you've already been training and like, oh, my God, you're now in the acs. There isn't that much different between the PTS and the acs. We've just put through, or put four students through our commercial courses here at hogs, and we used the ACS for the commercial. You can see it's kind of bent up and beat up because we were using it going through. If you go through this thing step by step, it's going to help you prepare for your CFI checkride. The first part is all the stuff in the oral, and the second part is what you're going to do during the flight. And then as instructors, you need to be very, very familiar with this page right here. This is in the back of the book. Page 19, section 7, Practical Test Checklist Applicant. All right, so As a new CFI, when I started out 25 years ago, I asked the examiner, hey, give me some tips as a new cfi. And the only thing he had to say was, make sure you use the pts and make sure that your students are using them, are using the pts, and you're going through the pts with your students. And point out this page, because if you show up and you're missing any of these items, I can't give you the checkride. I'm going to send you home and your student home. Okay? So not only is this your guideline as an instructor preparing your student, you're using it now for your CFI test, and then you're going to be wanting to use this. And what I've seen in my career is people don't want to use this book. All right? It's so important to be using this as a guideline. Okay? And then the other thing I want to tell you is in our videos, we have 650 videos on inside our Hogs memberships. We have over a thousand videos on YouTube. So I've used the term PTS 60,000 times in 25 years. I don't know. I'm just making up a random number. There's no way we can go change this on every question, every video across the board of that much content. So throughout the courses, if you hear me say pts, don't go, oh, well, that needs change. We can't do it. Okay. Airman Certifications is what it's now called, basically the same as the pts. There are some minute changes, but if you're working through it properly, you're going to catch those changes. So know the back, know what you have to have the day of the test. And please, please, please use this preparing for your cfi. And again, you need to be using this with your students. And if you do, you're going to be step ahead. Half the instructors out there that just kind of blow it off and go, oh, well, I know what you need to know for the test here, I'll just help you get through it. No, nobody's that good. You need to be going through this. So remember, we are now using the ACS Airman Certification Standards, formerly known as the Practical Test Standards. Use it, live it, love it, and we'll see in the next video. Peace out.
When you feel the pressure to fly, but know the right decision is to stay on the ground, hit the hogs. No go and live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com.
