Inoperative Equipment Scenario
Objective
Determine a student ability to apply required equipment rules, good judgement, and identification of external pressures.
Motivation
Contextualize required-equipment rules
Timing
- 15 minutes
Scenario
You are scheduled to fly at 12pm on a Sunday with you mom, who is visiting in town for the weekend. She leaves on Monday, and has been looking forward to flying with you.
You plan a flight to the coast in your club's rental airplane. The flight will take approximately 2 hours each way. You'll take a crew car into the city and grab some food. Then fly home.
The previous club member was late returning the airplane, however, and you weren't able to start you preflight until 2pm. During your preflight, you find that the navigation lights are broken. It's March, so the sunset is around 6pm.
Are you able to make the flight as planning?
Follow-up Scenario
You're able to get the nav bulb replaced at a shop on the field, but it delayed the departure even more. After dinner at the coast, you preflight for the return flight home at 7pm (after sunset). You find that the landing light is not inoperative.
What should you do?
Completion Standards
- Student recognizes:
- Flight may require them to fly at night on the return trip
- The navigation light is not required for day VFR, but it is for night VFR
- To fly during the day, the nav light breaker needs to be pulled and it should be labelled INOP
- There may be some external pressures to impress the student's family
- Alternatives exist to do a local flight
- Student recognizes:
- The landing light is not required for not-for-hire operations
- The inoperative landing light may present some additional risk