3.4 Recent Flight Experience and the Flight Review

PAR mixes two different “currency” ideas, and mixing them is how people miss written-test items. 14 CFR 61.56 is the flight review you need to act as pilot in command of an aircraft at all. 14 CFR 61.57 is recent flight experience for specific privileges — carrying persons, flying those persons at night, and, separately, acting as PIC under IFR. You can have a fresh flight review and still be illegal to take a friend up. You can be 90-day current and still be grounded as PIC if the flight review has lapsed. Instrument recent experience in 61.57(c) is a third box and is not required for a VFR private flight.

The flight review — 61.56

Except as provided in 61.56(b) and (f), a flight review consists of a minimum of 1 hour of flight training and 1 hour of ground training. The review must include a review of the current general operating and flight rules of part 91, and a review of those maneuvers and procedures that, at the discretion of the person giving the review, are necessary for the pilot to demonstrate the safe exercise of the privileges of the pilot certificate. There is no FAA-prescribed maneuver list. The instructor picks what is needed for you.

To act as PIC, 61.56(c) requires that, since the beginning of the 24th calendar month before the month in which that pilot acts as PIC, the person has accomplished a flight review given in an aircraft for which that pilot is rated by an authorized instructor, and has a logbook endorsement from that instructor certifying satisfactory completion. Calendar-month math is the trap. A review completed on any day in May 2024 remains valid through May 31, 2026 — the last day of the 24th calendar month — not through May 5, 2026. After May 31, 2026 you may not act as PIC until you complete another review (or qualify under an exception). You may still fly with an authorized instructor.

Exceptions you must know for PAR:

• 61.56(d)(1): a person who has, within that same 24-calendar-month period, passed a pilot proficiency check or practical test 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. Passing the private-pilot practical test, or adding a rating, restarts the 24-calendar-month clock.
• 61.56(d)(2): certain practical tests for a flight instructor certificate, an additional CFI rating, CFI recent experience under 61.197(b)(1), or CFI reinstatement under 61.199(b)(2) also substitute.
• 61.56(e): satisfactorily accomplishing one or more phases of an FAA-sponsored pilot proficiency program (the WINGS program) within that period also substitutes for the flight review.
• 61.56(g): a student pilot need not accomplish the flight review if the student is undergoing training for a certificate and has a current solo endorsement under 61.87.
• 61.56(h): the review may be combined with 61.57 recent-experience work at the instructor’s discretion.

A glider-only substitution (three instructional flights to traffic-pattern altitude in lieu of the 1 hour of flight training) lives in 61.56(b) and is not the airplane answer.

PAR scenario: your last flight review was completed on April 3, 2024. Today is April 20, 2026. You are still legal to act as PIC through April 30, 2026. On May 1, 2026 the review has lapsed even though “it has not been two full years since April 3.” Book the review in April.

Carrying persons — 61.57(a)

The current text of 61.57(a)(1) uses “persons,” not only “passengers.” Except as provided in 61.57(e), no person may act as PIC of an aircraft carrying persons, or of an aircraft certificated for more than one pilot flight crewmember, unless that person has made at least three takeoffs and three landings within the preceding 90 days, as the sole manipulator of the flight controls, in an aircraft of the same category, class, and type (if a class or type rating is required). If the aircraft to be flown is an airplane with a tailwheel, those takeoffs and landings must have been made to a full stop in an airplane with a tailwheel. Touch-and-goes in a tricycle-gear 172 do not make you current to carry a person in a tailwheel Cub.

To regain that experience, 61.57(a)(2) allows you to act as PIC under day VFR or day IFR provided no persons or property are carried other than those necessary for the conduct of the flight. Solo in the pattern in the same category and class is the usual way back. 61.57(e)(5) also lets you receive flight training from an authorized instructor for the purpose of meeting (a) and (b) with the instructor and trainee as the sole occupants, even if you were not already 90-day current.

Category and class are literal. Landings in a helicopter do not make you current in an airplane. Landings in a multiengine airplane do not make you current in a single-engine airplane. A type rating, when required, must match as well.

Night — 61.57(b)

Night recent experience is stricter and uses a defined window that is not “sunset to sunrise.” Except as provided in 61.57(e), no person may act as PIC of an aircraft carrying persons during the period beginning 1 hour after sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise unless, within the preceding 90 days, that person has made at least three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop during that same period (1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise), as sole manipulator, in the same category, class, and type if a type rating is required. Night landings must be full stop even in a tricycle-gear airplane. Landings at 20 minutes after sunset do not count for this paragraph. Day 90-day landings do not satisfy the night rule.

If you are night-current you are also meeting the basic 61.57(a) takeoff-and-landing count for that 90-day window, but the reverse is not true. A pilot who flew three day touch-and-goes last weekend is legal to carry a person at 3:00 p.m. and not legal to carry that person at 10:00 p.m.

Instrument recent experience is a different rule

61.57(c) governs acting as PIC under IFR or in weather less than the VFR minimums. The airplane version is a 6-calendar-month lookback with six instrument approaches, holding procedures and tasks, and intercepting and tracking courses. If that experience lapses for more than six additional calendar months, 61.57(d) requires an instrument proficiency check. None of that is required to act as a VFR private PIC. Do not import “six approaches in six months” into a VFR passenger-currency question.

Logging — 61.51 at the PAR level

61.51 requires you to document training and aeronautical experience used to meet requirements for a certificate, rating, or flight review, and the aeronautical experience required for recent flight experience. Each logged flight or lesson needs the date, total time, departure and arrival locations, aircraft type and identification, the type of experience (solo, PIC, training received), and conditions of flight (day or night; actual or simulated instrument when applicable). A private pilot may log PIC time when the sole manipulator of the controls of an aircraft for which the pilot is rated, or when the sole occupant. Training time must be endorsed by the authorized instructor with a description of the training, the length of the lesson, and the instructor’s signature, certificate number, and certificate expiration or recent-experience end date. Present the logbook, certificate, and medical (or BasicMed documents) for inspection on reasonable request by the Administrator, NTSB, or law enforcement (61.51(i)).

Keep the three clocks on separate lines in your logbook. The knowledge test will hand you a pilot who is current on two of them and ask whether the third flight is legal.