Pilot Currency Requirements: Flight Review and Recency

Currency vs. the flight review: two different clocks

Two separate requirements are often lumped together as “staying current,” and they run on different clocks. The flight review under 14 CFR 61.56 is a periodic check-in with an instructor that you need to act as pilot in command of an aircraft at all. Recency of experience under 14 CFR 61.57 is about specific privileges — carrying passengers, flying at night, flying instruments — each with its own lookback window. You can hold a current flight review and still be out of passenger currency, or be passenger-current but not instrument-current. They are independent.

One theme runs through all of it: the FAA counts in calendar months, not rolling dates. A requirement measured in calendar months is satisfied through the last day of the final month, regardless of the day within the month you completed it. Get that right and the rest of this is arithmetic.

The flight review (14 CFR 61.56)

A flight review is a review, not a test — there is no grade and nothing to pass or fail. Under 14 CFR 61.56 it consists of a minimum of 1 hour of flight training and 1 hour of ground training given by an authorized instructor. The ground portion reviews the current general operating and flight rules of 14 CFR part 91; the flight portion covers the maneuvers and procedures that, at the instructor’s discretion, are necessary for you to demonstrate the safe exercise of the privileges of your certificate. When the instructor is satisfied, they endorse your logbook.

The rule requires this review to have been completed within the preceding 24 calendar months for you to act as pilot in command. Because it is measured in calendar months, a flight review completed anytime in March 2024 remains valid through the end of March 2026 — always the last day of the 24th month. Miss the window and you are not grounded from flying, but you may not act as pilot in command until you complete one.

Several activities satisfy the requirement in place of a standalone review. If, within the same 24-calendar-month period, you passed a practical test or proficiency check for a new certificate, rating, or operating privilege, you need not accomplish a separate flight review. So does satisfactorily completing one or more phases of the FAA-sponsored WINGS pilot proficiency program. A student pilot training for a certificate or rating and carrying a current solo endorsement is likewise excepted while that training is under way.

Passenger currency by day (14 CFR 61.57(a))

To carry passengers, 14 CFR 61.57(a) requires that you have made at least three takeoffs and three landings within the preceding 90 days, acting as the sole manipulator of the flight controls, in an aircraft of the same category, class, and type (if a type rating is required). Category and class here mean, for example, airplane single-engine land — landings in a single-engine airplane do not make you current to carry passengers in a multi-engine airplane or a helicopter.

Two details matter. First, in a tailwheel airplane the landings must be made to a full stop; touch-and-goes do not count. In a nosewheel airplane by day, touch-and-goes do count. Second, this recency applies only to carrying passengers. A pilot who is not passenger-current may still legally fly alone — the three-in-90 rule is a passenger rule, not a permission to fly at all. That distinction is the most common point of confusion in the whole subject.

Night passenger currency (14 CFR 61.57(b))

Carrying passengers at night has its own, stricter version of the rule. Under 14 CFR 61.57(b), the three takeoffs and three landings must be made to a full stop, within the preceding 90 days, in the same category, class, and type — and they must occur during the period beginning 1 hour after sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise. Full-stop landings are required here regardless of gear type, so a nosewheel pilot who stays day-current with touch-and-goes still needs full-stop night landings to carry passengers after dark.

Watch the time windows, because there are two different definitions of “night” in play. The recency window above — one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise — is specific to 61.57(b). It is not the same as the 14 CFR 1.1 definition of night (the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight) that governs logging night flight time. A landing can count as night flight time for logging yet fall outside the 61.57(b) currency window, or vice versa.

Instrument currency (14 CFR 61.57(c))

To act as pilot in command under IFR, or in weather below the minimums for VFR, 14 CFR 61.57(c) requires that within the 6 calendar months preceding the month of the flight you have performed and logged, in the appropriate category of aircraft:

• →Six instrument approaches
• →Holding procedures and tasks
• →Intercepting and tracking courses through the use of navigational electronic systems

Because the lookback is six calendar months, approaches flown any time in June keep you instrument-current through the end of December. The tasks may also be completed in a full flight simulator, flight training device, or aviation training device that represents the category of aircraft, subject to the conditions in the rule. If you fly the approaches in actual aircraft under simulated instrument conditions — under the hood — you need a safety pilot in accordance with 14 CFR 91.109.

Losing instrument currency: the grace period and the IPC

Instrument currency has a two-stage lapse that catches people out. Once you no longer meet the 61.57(c) requirements, you are not instrument current and may not act as pilot in command under IFR or in instrument conditions. But you are not immediately sent back to a checkride. For up to six calendar months after currency lapses, you may reestablish it simply by performing and logging the required six approaches, holding, and course tracking — practicable in visual conditions under the hood with a safety pilot, since you cannot legally fly in IMC while non-current.

Cross that line and the requirement hardens. Under 14 CFR 61.57(d), a pilot who has failed to meet the instrument experience requirements for more than six calendar months may reestablish instrument currency only by completing an instrument proficiency check (IPC) — an evaluation to the instrument rating standards, given by an authorized instructor, examiner, or other authorized person. In short: six months to stay current, another six to self-regain, and after that an IPC.

A note on precision

This guide is an overview written to be accurate to the current 14 CFR 61.56 and 61.57 text, but regulations are revised over time and carry conditions and exceptions beyond what fits here. Before you rely on any specific interval, read the current rule directly on the eCFR or confirm with a flight instructor. Currency is one part of the broader record your pilot logbook exists to prove.

How Sky Duty helps you see your currency

The reason currency turns into guesswork is arithmetic: counting landings inside a moving 90-day window, or approaches across six calendar months, by hand. A digital logbook removes that. Sky Duty calculates FAA currency automatically from your logged flights — your takeoffs, landings, and instrument approaches — so you can see your currency status without doing the counting yourself. Entries auto-fill from the trips you schedule and fly, which keeps the underlying record complete, and the whole logbook exports to PDF and CSV when you need it for a checkride, an insurance review, or an IPC.

Two honest limits keep expectations straight. Sky Duty shows the currency status computed from your entries; it does not interpret the regulations for you, and reading that status against the current rule text stays with you as pilot in command. And Sky Duty auto-fills going forward from your trips rather than importing an existing logbook, so export your prior history from your old tool for your records and let Sky Duty build the record from here.