A quick tour of how the VSL ACE Guide works
The ACE Guide puts your ACS standards, FAA handbooks, and regulatory references in one place, and everything is one tap away. Here's how to find your way around.
The Global Menu is the main navigation page of the ACE Guide. Every ACS, handbook, and reference in the guide starts from here.
You can get to it from anywhere in the guide. Just tap the Global Menu button at the top of any page.
Look for this button at the top of every page in the guide.
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The Global Menu has three pages. Page 1 holds the major FAA handbooks and ACS documents.
Here you'll find every pilot Airman Certification Standards (ACS) document, along with most of the primary FAA handbooks, including the PHAK, the Airplane Flying Handbook, and the Instrument Flying Handbook.
Buttons with the computer icon open in your browser, so you'll need an internet connection to use them.
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Page 2 of the Global Menu links to useful source documents and a limited number of custom-created guides by VSL Aviation (the green buttons).
Version 9 of the ACE Guide adds three major updates. Each one collects FAA and NTSB safety messages, along with case studies and information.
Page 3 of the Global Menu contains FAA Advisory Circulars. These are the ACs we selected because they hold the most impactful information for GA pilots and the training community.
Every one of these ACs has its own hyperlinked table of contents, which makes navigating them much easier.
At the top left of every Global Menu page you'll see three horizontal yellow lines, often called a "hamburger button." Tap it to open the quick link menu.
From there you can jump straight to Maneuvers, Checkrides, or WINGS topics.
Look for this button at the top left of each Global Menu page.
At the top right of the Global Menu pages you'll see a "?" button. Tap it to open the help menu.
From there you can get to Currency Info, the FAQs, the Sharing Link, the change log (V9.0 Changes), and the User Guide.
Look for this button at the top right of each Global Menu page.
The Currency Info page has a table of the major handbooks and ACS documents in the guide, along with the latest published date for each one.
Compare these dates to the FAA's website to check whether you have the current version.
The V9.0 Changes button (or whatever the current version is) takes you to the change log.
Starting with version 6.9, you can see what has changed in the ACE Guide from one update to the next.
The button carries the number of the current version, so it will read differently after each update.
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The most common way to use the guide day to day is to start with the ACS document for the rating you have a question about. Let's look at the Private Pilot ACS.
The home page of each ACS looks very similar. It gives you a table of contents for the ACS, along with some buttons at the bottom of the page.
Say you have a question about the privileges and limitations of a Private Pilot. We know that information is in Area of Operation I, Preflight Preparation.
After tapping that tile on the ACS home page, you'll find another navigation tree. It includes Task A, Pilot Qualifications.
Tap this tile on the ACS home page to open Area of Operation I.
Tap Task A and you'll see the ACS Task A page, which includes several hyperlinks and buttons.
After a quick scan, we can see a link to FAR 61.113, which covers privileges and limitations, along with many other links about pilot qualifications.
Tap the 61.113 hyperlink and you go directly to the eCFR website, opened right to that regulation.
The color of a link or button tells you where it will take you.
In this example, let's tap the green Endorsements button at the bottom of the Task A page. It takes us to AC 61-65K.
Tap this button at the bottom of the Task A page.
To return to the page you were just on, tap the back arrow at the top of the page.
Say you want to study a particular maneuver, like the Steep Turn. There are a couple of ways to do it.
The first way is to use the ACS. Navigate to Area of Operation V, then Task A, Steep Turn.
As in the previous example, this takes you to the ACS task page for steep turns. It lists the Knowledge, Risk Management, and Skill elements.
Since this is a flying task, there aren't as many links. Most of the maneuver is covered in the Airplane Flying Handbook.
At the bottom of the page you'll see a single green button. Tap it to go directly to Chapter 10 of the AFH, on the page for Steep Turns.
This button sits at the bottom of the task page, below the last skill element.
You land on the Steep Turns page in Chapter 10 of the Airplane Flying Handbook.
On this page you'll also see buttons that take you back to the Steep Turn task in the other ACS documents, such as Commercial, Instructor, and ATP.
You can also find a maneuver without going through the ACS.
This takes you to a submenu where you can select from all of the maneuvers covered in the Airplane Flying Handbook.
In this case, tap the Performance button.
Now tap the Steep Turns button.
Now let's look at some other functions of the ACE Guide. On page 1 of the Global Menu, you'll find a purple Legal Interps button. Tap it to open the Legal Interpretations Index.
Look for this button on page 1 of the Global Menu.
Let's say you have a question about safety pilots: logging time, or acting as a safety pilot in a high-performance aircraft when you don't hold the appropriate endorsement.
Tap Safety Pilot Operations.
This takes you to a submenu with three LOIs and a short description of each.
From these, we can see that the Rizner 1991 LOI addresses our question. Tap that button.
Tapping the button takes you to the Rizner LOI summary.
At the bottom of the page is a View Raw Legal Interpretation button that takes you directly to the raw LOI.
Here's the original FAA letter, so you can read the exact question and the FAA's answer.
Now let's look at the NTSB Safety Alert section of the ACE Guide. You'll find it on Global Menu page 2.
For this example, say you're a flight instructor preparing a ground lesson on stabilized approaches and you want a good case study to look at.
After tapping the NTSB Safety Alerts button, you'll see two options: General and Weather.
Tap General.
Next you'll see a three-page menu of safety alerts with brief descriptions.
If a card has a blue computer icon, it needs an internet connection. In our example, the card at the bottom right of this page is SA-077 Stabilized Approaches, and it is saved locally in the guide.
A blue computer icon means the alert opens online and needs an internet connection.
Tapping that card takes you to SA-077, which covers stabilized approaches.
Each alert describes the problem and lists related accidents.
On page 2 of the safety alert, we find an accident involving a Piper J5A. It includes the NTSB investigation number.
To look it up, we'll use that number, GAA17CA519.
To look it up, tap the home button at the top of the page. This takes you back to the NTSB Safety Alert landing page, which has a link to the NTSB CAROL search portal.
The home button is the small house at the top of the page.
Tap CAROL Search to open the website.
On the CAROL website, scroll down to the NTSB # field and type in the number. In this case it's GAA17CA519.
Then scroll to the bottom of the page and tap Search.
The search results let you open the full investigation page on the NTSB website. Tap the case number to open it.
Here's the full investigation page on the NTSB site, for your reference and use. It's a good case study to bring to a stabilized approach lesson.
The ACE Guide currently has over 7,000 pages of information. That can feel overwhelming, but don't think of it as a whole document you need to read. Think of it as a system that helps you find information quickly, when you need it. Tap around and explore the different navigation menus. I guarantee you'll find FAA information you didn't even know existed.
That's one of the reasons we created this guide. FAA information can be difficult to find because it's spread out over dozens of websites. Many handbooks, advisory circulars, and pamphlets with important information are hardly known because they're stored on some obscure FAA website. And that's not even counting the legal interpretations, NTSB alerts, and other esoteric documents that a lot of pilots wouldn't know to search for.
We're constantly looking for useful documents to add to the guide, and we keep improving the link structure to make cross-referencing better. If there's something you'd like to see in a future update, feel free to contact Seth directly at sethlake@vsl.aero.