You, brand-new holder of a pilot certificate, have just been through an ordeal involving an airplane, an examiner, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Relax and exhale, knowing that you have two years to enjoy your newfound privileges before anybody questions your piloting abilities.
What’s that, you say? You didn’t know you were going to have to jump through any hoops ever again? Ah, but you will!
It’s called a flight review. Once known as a biennial flight review—many pilots still call it a BFR—fulfillment of the flight review is a requirement for you to continue to act as a pilot in command. It has a single purpose: to determine whether you continue to have the skills you need to be a safe pilot. The flight review must be completed every 24 months from the date of your last certificate, rating, or flight review. You have two years from the last day of the month in which you got your ticket or rating or review.
Federal Aviation Regulation 61.56 outlines the requirements of a flight review: a minimum of an hour of flight training and one hour of ground training. The general operating rules of Part 91 are to be covered in the ground portion. For the flight portion, the reviewer (a CFI) will choose maneuvers and procedures that prove you’re capable of safely exercising the privileges of your certificate. You’ll talk, you'll fly as the CFI probes to see what you’ve retained and what has gone missing in the previous 24 months. You must perform to your CFI’s satisfaction so as to obtain a logbook endorsement, but there’s no actual test involved. You can’t fail.
Completing one or more phases of the FAA Wings Pilot Proficiency Program satisfies the flight review requirements of FAR 61.56. The Wings program stipulates three flight courses and three knowledge courses, and you submit your progress to the FAA online (www.faasafety.gov/WINGS). The program is designed to take you to a higher level of proficiency than simply fulfilling the straight requirements of a flight review, so there are more tasks to complete and more deadlines to follow. Many Air Safety Institute online offerings (www.airsafetyinstitute.org) qualify for Wings credit.
But there are other ways to satisfy the requirements of FAR 61.56—paths that can be fun, rewarding, and broaden your aviation horizons. These will cost you more than a typical flight review—but very little in aviation doesn’t come with a price tag.
Floatplane
Set sail in a floatplane. Adding a sea rating to your single-engine landlubber status is one of the most fun, if most wildly impractical, ways to get the job done. Fun, because you’re taking off and landing on beautiful lakes and rivers. Impractical, because once you get the coveted rating, very few outfits will rent you a floatplane for solo flight. But that shouldn’t stop you.
Flying on floats is a specialty at many flight schools. Florida, Maine, and Alaska have no shortage of schools that specialize in seaplane training, and they have crafted the accelerated two- to three-day program to a fine art. For most pilots, that means two days of training followed by an FAA checkride (but no knowledge test required). Of course, if you happen to live near a seaplane base and an instructor with a floatplane, you can take your time.
� Start your search at the Seaplane Pilots Association website (www.seaplanes.org), which has a state-by-state directory of schools. Approximate cost: $1,000-$2,500 (does not include lodging and may not include examiner’s fee).
Taildragger
Drag your tail. A tailwheel endorsement does not, by itself, qualify as a flight review. But any good flight school can design a program that includes the elements of a flight review. Along the way, you’ll be challenged in ways you likely never were if you’ve been planting a tricycle-gear airplane on the runway for the past two years.
In the air, tailwheel and tricycle-gear airplanes fly just about the same. On the ground, however, the differences begin with the fact that the main landing gear is in front of the pilot. The center of gravity (CG) is behind the main gear, and any tendency of the aircraft to pivot around that gear is magnified. Thus, as you taxi, take off, and land (most especially when you land), there needs to be coordinated use of aileron and rudder—and the airplane needs to be tracking straight, else you might find the CG swapping places with the nose. (That’s called a ground loop.)
A side benefit of the tailwheel endorsement is that you may get to fly a classic or antique airplane such as a Piper J-3 Cub, Aeronca Champ, or Luscombe. These back-to-basics airframes will remind you of why you started to learn to fly in the first place.
Expect to pay for five to 10 hours of dual instruction plus aircraft rental.
Instrument
Get your head in the clouds. Your CFI admonished you to keep out of the clouds the entire time you were in training, and as a pilot operating under visual flight rules, you have no other option but to remain clear. With an instrument rating, however, you can get your wings wet—safely. You’ll learn to fly without visual references by scanning the airplane’s instruments to get critical information on attitude, heading, airspeed, and altitude. You’ll learn to fly instrument approaches—the aerial instructions whose approach plates show you how to land at an airport or take you safely away from it if you can’t see the runway. The rating requires you to pass both a knowledge test and a practical test.
A benefit of the instrument rating is that you’ll spend so much time talking to ATC that mic-fright issues will evaporate. And you’ll get a lot more utility out of your certificate, because many weather conditions that once would have grounded you won’t be an obstacle.
An instrument rating can’t be snapped out in a weekend, particularly since the requirements for the rating include 50 hours of cross-country time. Accelerated programs are available that enable you to complete the rating after you’ve taken a knowledge test. For a program of this level of complexity, however, many pilots take the traditional path of a few hours of training per week for as long as it takes.
A note of warning: Once earned, an instrument rating must be used. The skills can evaporate rapidly, which is why the rating comes with its own set of proficiency requirements laid out in FAR 61.67(c).
Aerobatic
Go topsy-turvey. As with the tailwheel endorsement, aerobatic training by itself does not constitute a flight review (and there is no aerobatic signoff or endorsement). That doesn’t mean you can’t challenge yourself with a program of aerobatic flying that includes the maneuvers and ground work needed for a flight review.
Here you’ll go beyond the envelope of straight-and-level flight to unleash your inner Sean Tucker or Patty Wagstaff as you learn how to execute spins, Dutch rolls, aileron rolls, loops, hammerheads, snap-rolls, and lots of other cool-sounding stuff. Stick-and-rudder flying is an essential element of aerobatics, so you’ll learn better control of the aircraft, and find out how well you handle the sensations associated with higher-than-normal G-forces. And if you fall in love with aerobatic flying, you can put together your own routine and participate in competitions.
See the International Aerobatic Club’s website (www.iacusn.org/schools) for a list of schools and other information.
Related Articles
