Certified Flight Instructor Preparation Guide by James Kelly

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Anybody read this?

I stumbled across it tonight when I stopped to pick up some new sectionals and approach plates. It's sort of a walk through from a former FAA Inspector who now focuses on training CFI candidates and he's explaining many of his perceptions of the problems with CFI certification both from the training side, the PTS side, and the FAA inspectors side, why the failure rate is so high, etc. I'm finding it really interesting and helpful.
 
Are you in Sacramento? I bought this same guide at the place I rent from at KSAC. Anyway... I bought that book before I went and did my CFI. I can tell you that it is the single most helpful book other than the typical FAA-8083 publications. Jim Kelly is a local guy in Sacramento and did such a great job with the format of that book.

Some things I found excessive as far as the strategy for tackling each TASK, but I took my checkride with a DPE, not an Inspector. From what I understand, DPE's can run checkrides a lot different than Inspectors. Inspectors typically roll through the complete PTS, TASK by TASK. In that case, following Kelly's book entirely is a good idea. I loaned the book out to some other guys doing their CFI the month before me, and they couldn't thank me enough for letting them borrow it.
 
grkero said:
Are you in Sacramento? I bought this same guide at the place I rent from at KSAC. Anyway... I bought that book before I went and did my CFI. I can tell you that it is the single most helpful book other than the typical FAA-8083 publications. Jim Kelly is a local guy in Sacramento and did such a great job with the format of that book.

Some things I found excessive as far as the strategy for tackling each TASK, but I took my checkride with a DPE, not an Inspector. From what I understand, DPE's can run checkrides a lot different than Inspectors. Inspectors typically roll through the complete PTS, TASK by TASK. In that case, following Kelly's book entirely is a good idea. I loaned the book out to some other guys doing their CFI the month before me, and they couldn't thank me enough for letting them borrow it.
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No, I bought my copy in Spokane, WA. I bought it on a whim from a local pilot supply shop. A quick search of the interwebs shows it's not a book carried by Amazon or Sporty's, but MarvGolden carries it.

I wish I had found the book a month ago when I was trying to understand how I should even go about preparing for the CFI and how to approach creating the binder and lesson plans. His advice in the book is making things come together and actually make sense. If you run into Jim, since he's local, extend my thanks for the book.
 
I used it throughout my CFI training and took the binder I created for each task with me to the checkride. After doing a few lesson plans this style (based off the PTS tasks), you get he hang of it, and I plan to do my CFII the same way.
 
grkero said:
Some things I found excessive as far as the strategy for tackling each TASK, but I took my checkride with a DPE, not an Inspector. From what I understand, DPE's can run checkrides a lot different than Inspectors. Inspectors typically roll through the complete PTS, TASK by TASK. In that case, following Kelly's book entirely is a good idea. I loaned the book out to some other guys doing their CFI the month before me, and they couldn't thank me enough for letting them borrow it.
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DPEs have to develop a POA (Plan of Action) that is based on the PTS and they have to cover all of the required items in the PTS, just like an FAA Inspector.
 
traumachicken said:
The Gleim book, was very useful to me. I havnt seen the book you are speaking of.
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The Gleim "Flight Instructor Flight Maneuvers" book? I have that one too and it's very good. The book by Jim does provide sample outlines for the areas and tasks but includes more narrative, what he's seen as an inspector with good and bad examples, talks about how FAA inspectors have a very different perspective than the typical pilot/instructor and how that comes into play during the check ride, how the FAA provides very little training to inspectors on how to conduct a check ride which is one contributing factor to the reason that CFI rides are very inconsistent between different inspectors, and he talks about what his personal preferences were when conducting check rides.
 
mojo6911 said:
DPEs have to develop a POA (Plan of Action) that is based on the PTS and they have to cover all of the required items in the PTS, just like an FAA Inspector.
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I understand that. The DPE I had for my initial had some interesting methods and requirements of knowledge in obscure areas, mainly to make me stress out, but way different than the experience people have had with Inspectors, as I understood. Of course you cover the required PTS tasks, but sometimes a unique approach may be appropriate for different examiners. Just depends if you know something about the examiner.

I think my original point wasn't necessary. What I should have said was following Jim Kelly's recommendation is pretty fail-safe in any condition. It just might take longer to explain something because his recommendations for some tasks are very lengthy.
 
Hey everybody. I’ve been looking for that book my old cfi talked about it. I’ve been trying to find a copy before I get my CFI. I’ll appreciate any help. Thanks
 
Yes, thanks much for the link to the .pdf. I ran across this thread yesterday and am now reading through the document, planning to reorganize my materials accordingly.
 
Wanted to share some comments/findings on Kelly's book...

  • Kelly's recommendation is to basically put together the lesson plans following the CFI PTS and his guidance on the importance of certain things over others. I don't think there is anything specifically wrong with this approach, however, it's contrary to most of the guidance I've seen that says it's a good idea to organize things according to the ACS for the Private and Commercial. I believe it's just a different way of thinking about things based on his experience - which is entirely valid and worth considering - I'm merely suggesting that we consider all of the angles.
  • The real-world examples he uses to address certain tasks and content are excellent. This is making me dive a little deeper on my own material.
  • For a document talking about the attention to detail required for a CFI candidate, it is in dire need of a copy editor for grammar and spelling. This isn't a problem in terms of reading/understanding, but I expected a little more polish given the subject matter.
  • Some of the references to specific task listings in the Areas of Operation are now incorrect by current standards - the PTS and the ACSs have all undergone multiple revisions over the years. It means that if you decide to follow his guidance, you need to update and edit as you go to correct for current information. Put another way - the FOI/Aviation Instructor's Handbook specifically calls out the need for CFIs to work with current information, so it's imperative that you not charge bravely into 2011 or so.
Kelly's guidance also suggests hard copies and binders. I don't see anything wrong with this approach, but the advantages of having documents organized electronically is certainly attractive and may not have been as conventional at the time he wrote the book - I'm not clear on that, but electronic binders which are logically divided are just as readable as paper and far more portable. Even better if you use a cloud-based document method like Google Docs or Office 365 - access your content from any internet-capable device. You can always print off what you need as you need it.

I believe I'm going to re-visit some of my lesson plans and perhaps follow some of his organizational guidance - I haven't decided yet what's going to work best for me, but it has certainly given me some things to think about.
 
His book was one of many resources I used in preparing for my CFI, and I strongly recommend it.

Don't go into the CFI exam thinking it's easy. It's one of the hardest—if not the single hardest—challenge(s) you'll ever face.

-Fox
 
@killbilly regarding your first point, for my recent CFI checkride we used the flight instructor PTS. I found it valuable to organize my reference materials in my binder keyed to the PTS rather than the private or commercial ACS. When the examiner said, ok let's talk about subject xyz, it came straight from the PTS and I was confident that I had all the reference material for that subject in one area of my binder. While there is substantial overlap, if I had organized my material based on the private or commercial ACS I'd be less confident that I was hitting all points called out in the CFI PTS.

I think the value in the book is the template he provides. Understand each point in the PTS and be able to quickly reference source material to back up your lesson outline.

For actually teaching, a binder organized around the private and commercial ACS makes more sense. Just another case of a difference between a checkride and real life.
 
uncreative said:
@killbilly regarding your first point, for my recent CFI checkride we used the flight instructor PTS. I found it valuable to organize my reference materials in my binder keyed to the PTS rather than the private or commercial ACS. When the examiner said, ok let's talk about subject xyz, it came straight from the PTS and I was confident that I had all the reference material for that subject in one area of my binder. While there is substantial overlap, if I had organized my material based on the private or commercial ACS I'd be less confident that I was hitting all points called out in the CFI PTS.

I think the value in the book is the template he provides. Understand each point in the PTS and be able to quickly reference source material to back up your lesson outline.

For actually teaching, a binder organized around the private and commercial ACS makes more sense. Just another case of a difference between a checkride and real life.
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Yes. I agree with you and I'm in the midst of re-organizing everything I have. My plan is to finish up around mid-to-end of April at the absolute latest - depends more on my instructor's schedule than anything else.

I *really* like some of his ideas about negative transfer. That forced me to think about some things in a new light.

Acrofox said:
His book was one of many resources I used in preparing for my CFI, and I strongly recommend it.

Don't go into the CFI exam thinking it's easy. It's one of the hardest—if not the single hardest—challenge(s) you'll ever face.

-Fox
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I'm not at all - please excuse me if I gave that impression - I have zero expectation of it being a cakewalk. I full expect this to be a ballbuster, so to speak.
 
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