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FAA MEI study materials
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FAA MEI: Single-Pilot Resource Management

FAA MEI · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

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Single-Pilot Resource Management

What the examiner is testing

Single-Pilot Resource Management tests whether you can teach a pilot flying alone to manage risk, attention, automation, and decisions. In the MEI oral, SRM often appears as a single-engine decision scenario: an engine failure, an icing encounter, or a worsening weather system with one pilot and no second crewmember.

SRM framework

  • PAVE separates Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment, and External pressures. IMSAFE checks illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, and emotion.
  • The 3P model is Perceive, Process, Perform: identify hazards, evaluate them against personal minimums, then act.
  • DECIDE: Detect, Estimate, Choose, Identify, Do, Evaluate. It is a loop, not a one-time checklist.
  • Situational awareness includes terrain, weather, traffic, fuel, and aircraft state. Automation management means knowing what the autopilot is doing and what it will do next.
  • Task management means prioritizing aviate, navigate, communicate, and then manage systems.

Worked example

Cruising at 8,000 feet, you notice the right engine oil pressure dropping and the oil temperature rising, with no fire warning. Perceive: the engine may fail. Process: consider driftdown, single-engine service ceiling, terrain, weather, and nearest suitable airports. Perform using DECIDE: Detect the oil trend; Estimate time to failure; Choose a diversion airport with a suitable runway and maintenance; Identify and verify the failing engine; Do the engine-failure checklist, including feather and secure; Evaluate the new fuel, altitude, and approach situation. The reasoning is that a precautionary shutdown over a suitable airport is safer than continuing toward a destination with an engine that may fail at a worse time.

Traps that cost marks

  • Plan continuation bias: pressing on because the destination is familiar or the schedule is tight.
  • Channelized attention on the failing engine while altitude, heading, or traffic goes unmanaged.
  • Automation complacency, such as failing to notice a mode change or an uncommanded pitch trim input.
  • Skipping the checklist to save time during a single-engine event.
  • Setting personal minimums after the flight rather than before it.