Part 61 Flight Training

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Lesson 11, To first solo

Pre-solo check

Flight: Home pattern

10 NM 10 NM
FAA Detroit sectional, 29 OCT 2026 edition. For briefing, not for navigation: fly from the current chart. Tap the chart to open it full size.

Today's flight

Fly it as if I am not here. Soon you will be the only person in the airplane, and before I sign anything I need to see you do the whole flight with nobody helping.

There are three parts, on at least two days: the pre-solo knowledge test, with every wrong answer reviewed; a home pattern flight at KARB where I say nothing unless safety needs it; and the club's Pre-Solo Phase Check with another instructor. When all three are done and done well, you get your solo endorsements, and the reason you gave in lesson 2 for learning to fly is one big step closer.

Every flight

Before every flight

  1. Pilot. Am I fit to fly today? IMSAFE:
    • Illness
    • Medication
    • Stress
    • Alcohol
    • Fatigue
    • Emotion, and eating
  2. Aircraft. Is this airplane ready, and right for today? Documents, inspections and open squawks; fuel and oil on board; weight, balance and performance for today's load.
  3. Environment. What will today's flight meet? NWKRAFT, what 14 CFR 91.103 asks you to know before every flight, then the airspace and the route:
    • NOTAMs and TFRs
    • Weather, against your minimums
    • Known ATC delays
    • Runway lengths
    • Alternates
    • Fuel required, with reserve
    • Takeoff and landing distances
    • Airspace: the Class B limits from the current chart
    • The trip: heading, time, landmarks, wind and runway
  4. External pressures. What is pushing me to go today: a passenger, a schedule, a plan I don't want to cancel? Would I go without it?
  5. If it goes wrong. The takeoff emergency brief, out loud: an engine problem on the runway, after liftoff with runway left, and after liftoff without.
  6. Who flies. Who does what today, and how we hand the controls back and forth.

Who runs it today: You, unprompted, as if you were about to fly alone. I check it, but I don't add to it.

Deeper today: Pilot and Weather. On solo you are the only one judging whether you are fit to fly, so you say it out loud and mean it. And you check the weather against the solo limits we set together today, not against what I would fly in.

Recall

From earlier lessons

  1. You bounce on landing. What do you do?

    Reveal answer

    Go around: full power, climb attitude, then clean up with the club checklist.

  2. The engine fails just after liftoff with no runway left. What do you do?

    Reveal answer

    Nose down to best glide, land roughly straight ahead with only small turns, and don't try to turn back.

  3. Your radio is out in the KARB pattern and the tower shows you a steady green light. Then a flashing red. What do they mean?

    Reveal answer

    Steady green in flight is cleared to land. Flashing red is airport unsafe, do not land.

  4. At KYIP, ground clears you to taxi and you aren't sure which way. What do you do?

    Reveal answer

    Stop and ask ground. Read back every hold short, and never cross a red runway sign without a clearance.

Why Alone, there is nobody to ask. What you know is all you have.

The knowledge test

  • Rules, KARB's airspace and procedures, and your airplane's limits.
  • I give the test, and we go over every wrong answer before any solo.
  • It isn't about the score. Each wrong answer is a gap we close today.

Why Before I sign, I need to see a whole flight with nobody helping.

Flying it alone, with me aboard

  • I say nothing unless safety needs it. My silence doesn't mean it's fine; it means it's yours.
  • Every call, checklist, go-around and decision is yours, out loud.
  • I'll give you failures we brief before the flight: a go-around, a radio problem, an engine failure.

Why On solo, the limits in your logbook are the rules you fly by.

Your solo limits

  • Set for you, never looser than the club's: wind, crosswind, visibility, ceiling, where and when.
  • Built from what you've flown with me. A crosswind you've landed in with me is the most you take alone.
  • Always true: no passengers, and the ground in sight.
  • Outside your limits, the flight doesn't start, or it ends.

Why A second instructor sees things I have stopped noticing, in you and in my teaching.

The phase check

  • The club's Pre-Solo Phase Check, with another club instructor, on the club's form.
  • An oral and a flight. Read the form before the day so nothing on it is new.
  • Retrain is a normal result. It tells us exactly what to work on.

Why In writing, what you may do alone, and the limits on it.

The endorsements

  • Three endorsements in your logbook: the test, the training, and solo in this airplane.
  • They're good for 90 days, then an instructor who trained you renews them.
  • Read what I write, and know your limits from it.
  • Carry your student pilot certificate, medical and photo ID every flight.

A real accident

On May 25, 2011, a Michigan Flyers instructor at KARB flew takeoffs and landings in a Cessna 152 with a student before the student's second supervised solo. She had slept four hours and had arrived at 0620, and they had waited out rain showers with ground instruction first. Back on the ramp she got out with the engine running and, instead of walking toward the rear of the airplane as the club's instructors normally did, walked toward her car in front of it. Her headset cord, dangling from her hand, was caught by the propeller and pulled her into it, and she was seriously injured. The NTSB found the probable cause was her failure to keep clear of the propeller, with her decision not to shut down the engine and the club's lack of a policy against getting in or out with the engine running as contributing factors; afterward the club adopted that policy. On a sign-off day each of us owns part of it: I own being rested and how I leave the airplane, and you own the airplane once you are alone in it, starting with shutting it down before anyone gets in or out. NTSB report CEN11LA368

Your calls

Decision points

  • Whether today is a flying day at all, from the weather against the limits we are setting. You say it first.
  • During the quiet flight: every go-around, every runway question and every "unable" is yours.
  • Whether you feel ready. If you are not sure, say so. That is information, not failure.

The whole flight

Also on this flight

Part of the flightWho
Pre-solo knowledge test and reviewYou take it; I give it and review every wrong answer with you
Every-flight routineYou, unprompted, as if alone; I check it
Preflight, start, taxi, runupYou, with no help
Takeoffs, patterns and landings at KARB: at least six, including a go-around and a full stopYou; I stay quiet unless safety needs me
Briefed failures in the pattern: each one onceYou; I set them up
Shutdown and securingYou
Pre-Solo Phase Check (its own flight)You, with another club instructor
Solo endorsementsInstructor, when all three parts are satisfactory
DebriefBoth, you first

The standard

Ready to move on when

  • The knowledge test is done and you understand every answer you missed (14 CFR 61.87(b)).
  • You fly at least six patterns at KARB with no help, including a go-around and each briefed failure, safely and the same way each time, and your logbook shows the training 61.87(c) and (d) list.
  • You can say your solo limits from memory and why each one is there, including the ones 61.89(a) sets for every student pilot.
  • The Pre-Solo Phase Check result is satisfactory.
  • Your logbook has the endorsements.

At home, before the next flight

Chair fly it

  • Read your endorsements and limits, and write the limits on a card for your kneeboard.
  • Chair fly three solo patterns at KARB: a normal landing, a go-around on short final, and a full stop. Use the club's traffic pattern guide for your airplane on its Resources page.
  • Read the club's lost comms process and chair fly a radio failure in the KARB pattern, light signals included.
  • Say out loud what would make you call off your first solo. Those are good reasons.

After the flight

Debrief

You go first, then the instructor. Three points at most, and you write down one thing to work on next time.

  • Your solo endorsement: which moment in the quiet flight told you that you were ready for it, or not yet?
  • Which wrong answer on the knowledge test surprised you most?
  • What did the phase check instructor see that I hadn't told you?

Notes for teaching this lesson

Before the flight

  • Write the knowledge test yourself for this airplane and KARB. Parts 61 and 91 can be general; the airport part should be KARB's Class D and tower hours from the Chart Supplement and the Class B edges from the current chart, and the airplane part should come from its handbook.
  • Get Michigan Flyers' current maximum student limits before setting this student's. Set theirs from what they have flown with you, and never looser. 61.89(a) always applies: no passengers, at least 3 statute miles visibility by day, and the ground in sight.
  • Book the phase check with another club instructor, and send the student the form. It covers an oral (solo limitations, documents, Class D and Class G operations, stall and spin awareness, go or no-go) and a flight (stalls, steep turns, a simulated emergency, patterns, a rejected landing, landings), graded satisfactory, retrain or incomplete.
  • Brief every failure you will give. Before solo, no surprises.
  • Engine failure in the pattern: tell the tower first, pull power to idle only abeam the numbers or higher, and agree the words ("simulated engine failure") and the climb-away. Radio failure: agree that you'll say "simulated radio failure", and the student flies the lost comms steps as if the radio were out. Ask the tower first whether they can show light signals, and you keep listening on the real radio.

In the air

  • Stay quiet. Write things down for the debrief instead of saying them.
  • Common errors: radio calls dropping out as the workload rises; skipping the before-landing check after a go-around; a late go-around decision after a bounce; not knowing the light signals or the lost comms steps.

Curveballs

All briefed before the flight; before solo there are no surprises.

  • Simulated engine failure abeam the numbers on downwind, to a power-off landing or a go-around.
  • Simulated radio failure on downwind: the student flies the lost comms steps and watches for light signals.
  • "Go around" called on short final.
  • On downwind, ask: "If the tower gave you a runway with more crosswind than your limit, what would you say?"
  • A runway change from the tower, real or relayed by you.

After the flight

  • Review every wrong answer before any solo (61.87(b)(2)(ii)).
  • Endorsements: AC 61-65K appendix A, A.3 (knowledge test), A.4 (pre-solo flight training) and A.6 (solo, first 90 days). Write the student's limits in the logbook too, so 61.89(a)(8) applies to them. The solo endorsement is good for 90 days (61.87(n) and (p)); see AC 61-65K.
  • You can authorize the solo only if you gave this student training in this make and model and found them proficient (61.87(p)).
  • Mark the milestone: solo endorsements.
  • If the phase check says retrain, retrain on those items. The form is the plan.