2005/11/11 Biennial Flight Review and Flight Log Book
Once a person acquires a private pilot certificate, the certificate is valid permanently. It doesn't expire. The pilot thus will hold the certificate for life unless it is revoked due to a violation against the federal aviation regulation. However, to fly alone, a pilot needs to go through a kind of test called "Biennial Flight Review" (BFR) and renew a medical certificate. In Japan, due to a bureaucracy, a pilot also needs a radio operator certificate. It is very funny to me because if a pilot finishes a private pilot certificate, he must have practiced radio communication. Also, I don't think any pilot starts repairing a radio equipment while flying if it is broken. However, I will fly in the U.S. and do not have to worry about Japanese bureaucracy. But, because I haven't flown for long, my flight review had already expired, and my medical was not current either.
Without current BFR and medical certificate, I can fly only if the instructor flies with me. So, when I re-started flight training early this year, my first goal was to pass the BFR by the end of this year. Honestly speaking, I realized I had forgotten a lot of things and thought it was not realistic to pass the BFR by the end of this year. But, my instructor said he thought I could fly safely and was comfortable with giving me the flight review. So, I tried it on November 11th.
According to my instructor, there is no "fail" in the flight review. If the instructor doesn't think the pilot is not safe, the flight will be considered as an ordinary flight training, and no failure will be recorded. So, I thought I was not so nervous myself, but in reality, apparently I was a little more nervous than other flights because I had muscle pain on my left shoulder and left arm after the flight review.
The result was pass. I got an endorsement shown below on my logbook!
I had a lot of points that can be improved. I'll practice to fix those points. I already had renewed my medical certificate last month, and now I can legally fly an airplane alone. But, I'm thinking of flying with my instructor for a little more because if I fly alone, I may not notice something that I'm not doing well. If an instructor is with me, he can find such point and correct it.
By the way, flying alone means acting as a Pilot-In-Command. And, there are several different types of flight time including Pilot-In-Command (PIC) time, Dual Instruction Time, etc. I was thinking until recently that I could log PIC time only when I flew an airplane as PIC. But, my understanding was apparently wrong according to the Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR).
I was not 100% convinced when my instructor told me that I could log PIC time when I flew with an instructor even if the BFR and medical are not current. So, I asked several instructors about it, and the result was as follows.
Can log PIC time 1
Cannot log PIC time 1
Don't know 2
Two instructors said they are not sure about it. Most of the private pilots either stops flying after getting the private certificate or continue flying, and re-starting flying after several years of no flight (like me) seemed to be very rare. So, it was a kind of tie. (There's no room for manual re-count.)
Later my instructor showed me the regulation on which his opinion was based. Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 61.51 says:
(e) Logging pilot-in-command flight time. (1) A recreational, private, or commercial pilot may log pilot-in- command time only for that flight time during which that person --
(i) Is the sole manipulator of the controls of an aircraft for which the pilot is rated;
(ii) Is the sole occupant of the aircraft; or
(iii) Except for a recreational pilot, is acting as pilot in command of an aircraft on which more than one pilot is required under the type certification of the aircraft or the regulations under which the flight is conducted.
Hence, FAR 61.51 (e) (1) (i) can be interpreted as: the private pilot can log PIC time if he manipulated the airplane alone. So, if the pilot manipulates the airplane alone when the instructor is beside him, he can log PIC time, and this item doesn't talk about current BFR and medical. My instructor also pointed a supporting document that can be downloaded from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) web site. There is a description on page 48 line 10: "There is a distinction between acting as pilot in command and logging pilot-in-command time." and on page 48 line 16 "In order to log pilot-in-command time, a person who is the sole manipulator of the controls only needs to be properly rated in the aircraft" (Q&A-288.) Again, it does not tell that the pilot needs to have current BFR and medical to log PIC time.
So, I'm thinking to add the amount I flew last year and this year before passing BFR as PIC time. Later I asked the same question to two different instructors and now the vote count is as follows.
Can log PIC time 3
Cannot log PIC time 1
Don't know 2
