by Kevin D Murphy
This easy-to-understand article is on the new Airman Certification Standards, which are replacing the venerable Practical Test Standards. You’ll find these articles in each month’s SAFE eNews, as well as here in the SAFE Educational Opportunities! blog.
In 2011, SAFE chaired a landmark gathering in Atlanta of major GA stakeholders to discuss lack of growth, decreased student starts, increased student attrition, and flat accident rate trends. The new Airman Certification Standards are the result.
WHAT IS ACS?
Over the next several years, the Airman Certification Standards will replace today’s Practical Test Standards. The new ACS tells an applicants much more clearly what he or she must know, do and consider to pass both the knowledge and practical tests.
The new ACS adds task-specific knowledge and risk management elements to each part of the former PTS. The ACS documents are being written now, and eventually there will be one for each certificate and rating. Draft versions for both the Private Pilot Airplane and Instrument Rating Airplane ACS are available here.
For checkrides, use of the new more-specific ACS documents are expected to reduce subjective judgment on the part of examiners.
SOURCES OF ACS
One of the objectives of the ACS system is to make sure the study guides and references commonly used by students in preparing for a knowledge test or checkride are consistent not only with the test questions, but with each other as well. So far, the FAA has reviewed the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, Airplane Flying Handbook, Risk Management Handbook, Instrument Flying Handbook, Instrument Procedures Handbook, and CT-8080 test supplements.
In the next editions of these and other handbooks and manuals, the FAA will incorporate many industry recommendations to make sure they all agree with each other and with the test questions.
IS ACS REALLY AN IMPROVEMENT?
Of course, and here’s why:
The skill evaluation requirements in the ACS remain the same as in the PTS, but ACS improves the process by:
- Better defining knowledge needed and flight proficiency standards (skills).
- Clearly answers the “why do I need to know that?!” question in each portion of the test.
- Defines specific safety behaviors instead of using the rather amorphous “aeronautical decision-making.”
- Eliminates duplicate or overlapping tasks in the current PTS.
WHERE CAN I SEE EXAMPLES OF THE NEW ACS?
There is a short ACS brochure with examples of knowledge test subjects keyed to exact references in handbooks here .
WHEN WILL THE NEW ACS START?
The FAA is targeting June of 2016 as the start for the Private Pilot Airplane ACS, as well as the Commercial Pilot Airplane and Instrument Rating Airplane ACSs. Don’t be surprised if this date slips, however, because deploying this represents a massive change in the FAA’s testing system.
The ACSs for Authorized Instructor and Airline Transport Pilot are still in development.
