The student had asked why she needed to learn a specific maneuver, and the CFI’s response was, “Because it’s on the checkride.”

Here’s the thing, student pilots: Without exception, every single thing you are taught—both in the air and on the ground—serves a purpose. And, as a budding aviator, I think you should not only learn what’s expected but also know why you are learning it. That’s actually one of the fundamentals of adult learning: Adults don’t generally learn things well unless they know the reason they are expected to know them. The young CFI should have known this. It’s part of his training. So, he should have explained the “why.”

Anyway, back to all the things you are learning. The reasons for some of what you are taught are obvious. You learn the federal aviation regulations because, as a pilot, you’ll be flying in a soup of aviation regs. And as a responsible aviator, you are expected to know the rules and know under what circumstances you can break them. You learn about weather because it’s the No. 1 airborne threat—and knowledge of weather and weather services keeps you and your passengers safe. You learn cross-country navigation because what use is an airplane that doesn’t go anywhere?

But it’s the purpose behind learning the various required maneuvers that tends to trip people up. To understand why you learn all the things you are taught in the air, crack open the Airplane Flying Handbook. While it’s not likely that this book will spend any time on The New York Times bestseller list, it’s still a treasure trove of information.

In each chapter, the introduction gives you a broad overview of why the family of maneuvers in that section is taught; then, in the subsection dedicated to each individual maneuver, this broad overview is explained in greater detail.

So, dig in and find out why each maneuver is part of your training. And who knows? Maybe someday, on a checkride, the examiner might ask the reason you learned a maneuver, and you’ll know the answer.