Pilot Currency Requirements

Tom Benenson

Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 07:38 PM ET

Verified

** The biennially required flight review, if
approached as a real learning experience,
can refurbish proficiency.**

Key Takeaways:

The author's personal experience demonstrates that flying skills, unlike riding a bike, diminish with lack of practice, impacting both basic maneuvers and adapting to modern avionics.
While aviation regulations mandate minimum currency requirements (e.g., 90-day landings, IFR approaches, biennial flight review), merely meeting these minimums often falls short of ensuring true pilot competence and safety.
Pilots are encouraged to adopt a proactive approach to currency, setting more frequent personal goals, diversifying their flying practice (e.g., basic navigation), and using flight reviews as opportunities to genuinely challenge and enhance their skills beyond the bare minimums.

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(October 2011) The concept of staying current always seemed an intellectual one to me. While I still had my Cessna Cardinal, I tried to fly it every week or so to keep its fluids — and mine — flowing. As a result, I was able to routinely check off most of the currency boxes without much special effort. But now, without the Cardinal, my time in the cockpit is curtailed, and though I’ve always felt flying an airplane was a lot like riding a bike — a skill that was easily resurrected after a layoff — I was wrong.

I recently flew a Cardinal for the first leg on a flight to Atlanta to attend the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators’ Pilot Training Reform Symposium. Doug Stewart, chairman of SAFE, let me ride with him in his Cardinal and offered me the left seat on the first leg. After owning a Cardinal for almost 25 years, I felt comfortable assuming command.