AOPA Summit Seminar Question: FAR Refresher

[AggieMike88]

One of the seminars on Thursday is "FAR Refresher". The description says:

"Attend this intensive one-hour refresher for pilots on the most important and easily forgotten general operating and flight rules of FAR Part 91. This seminar satisfies the one-hour ground-training requirement of the flight review. Bring your logbook to be endorsed."

How long is this endorsement good for?

I did my most recent review via WINGS, completed in January of this year. Is this endorsement "durable" through the when I really need it which will be 2014?

 

[flyingron]

To comply with the flight review requirements you must have in the preceding 24 months have either completed the WINGS phase or the Flight Review (which consists of a hour of ground and an hour of flight). There's no guarantee that this seminar endorsement counts for anything. There's no provision in the reg for the instructor signing off the flight review to take prior training as demonstration of the ground phase of the review. The reg says you can double up other training (at the instructor's discretion), but doesn't say you can make subsitution of other training for the review.

 

[AggieMike88]

Thanks Ron... I was doubtful the offered endorsement would be of use to me and my timing of things.

I'm planning my IFR training in the first part of 2014, so I'll ask the instructor to include any extra items the flight review would ask for and obtain my sign off at that time.

 

[poadeleted20]

To comply with the flight review requirements you must have in the preceding 24 months have either completed the WINGS phase or the Flight Review (which consists of a hour of ground and an hour of flight). There's no guarantee that this seminar endorsement counts for anything. There's no provision in the reg for the instructor signing off the flight review to take prior training as demonstration of the ground phase of the review. The reg says you can double up other training (at the instructor's discretion), but doesn't say you can make subsitution of other training for the review.

There is nothing which says the instructor signing the review has to do it all. If you read the various regs involved, the regulations clearly contemplate a "split review" with the ground and flight portions being completed separately. Many CFI's (including me) get only the flight portion every two years, using their FIRC to meet the ground training requirement (see 61.56 for details). When that happens, the instructor doing the flight portion signs an endorsement saying something like this:

I certify that John Q. Pilot, Private Pilot certificate 1234567, satisfactorily completed the flight portion of a flight review IAW 14 CFR 61.56(a)(2) on this date.

/s/ Fred Instructor, 2345678CFI, exp 9/30/2014

Combine that with your FIRC completion certificate, and you're good to go for another 24 months.

I see no reason why an instructor (flight or ground) could not make and sign an entry in each attendee's logbook for 1 hour of ground training on Part 91 regulations, and enter in the back an endorsement something like this:

I certify that John Q. Pilot, Private Pilot certificate 1234567, satisfactorily completed the ground portion of a flight review IAW 14 CFR 61.56(a)(1) on this date.

/s/ Fred Instructor, 2345678CFI, exp 9/30/2014

And it wouldn't take a CFI to do that, either -- a Ground instructor with Advanced rating can do the ground portion of a flight review too (see 14 CFR 61.215(b)(2)). Then one need only go to a CFI and to the flight portion and get the 61.56(a)(1) endorsement described above and be done.

 

[poadeleted20]

I'm planning my IFR training in the first part of 2014, so I'll ask the instructor to include any extra items the flight review would ask for and obtain my sign off at that time.

If you get that IR, you won't need another flight review for 24 months after the practical test. See 61.56:

(d) A person who has, within the period specified in paragraph (c) of this section, passed a pilot proficiency check conducted by an examiner, an approved pilot check airman, or a U.S. Armed Force, for a pilot certificate, rating, or operating privilege need not accomplish the flight review required by this section.

 

[AggieMike88]

If you get that IR, you won't need another flight review for 24 months after the practical test. See 61.56:

Yup... That's what I had in mind

 

[flyingron]

Neglecting FLIGHT INSTRUCTORS as the review. Explain to me how having even both of those endorsements meets the conditions of 61.56(c)(2).