Certification requirements, recent flight experience, and recordkeeping
This chapter answers the first of the six questions below: are you qualified and current? It covers what you need to earn a private pilot certificate, the clocks that keep you current, what goes in your logbook, and which airplanes need an extra endorsement. It ends by taking one flight through all six questions, to decide whether you can act as pilot in command (PIC). The checkride asks you to do the same.
Your certificate never expires, but the right to use it depends on clocks you have to keep running.
Can I fly today? Six questions
Ask them before every flight. Each chapter in this task answers one, in this order.
Certification and currency
Who can get the certificate
Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) 61.103 lists what you need . Every item is required.
| Requirement | What it means |
|---|---|
| Age | At least 17, or 16 for a glider or balloon |
| Language | Read, speak, write and understand English |
| Certificate | Hold a student, sport or recreational pilot certificate |
| Training | Ground and flight training, with the instructor's endorsements |
| Knowledge test | Passed within 24 calendar months before the practical test |
| Experience | The 61.109 hours, below |
| Practical test | The oral exam and the flight, together |
The knowledge test rule is in 61.39 . Calendar months run to the last day of the month. So a test passed in March 2024 is good for a practical test through March 31, 2026.
The medical is not on the 61.103 list. It comes from 61.23 . You act as PIC on the checkride, so you need at least a third-class medical. BasicMed, the alternative to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) medical, also works, but only if you have held an FAA medical at some point after July 14, 2006 . So a first-time student needs a medical. BasicMed has its own chapter, BasicMed privileges.
Drug and alcohol offenses
Section 61.15 can stop a certificate too . A conviction under a federal or state drug law is grounds to deny an application for up to 1 year, or to suspend or revoke a certificate. So is an act that 91.17(a) or 91.19(a) prohibits. A motor vehicle action is a conviction for driving while intoxicated, impaired or under the influence of alcohol or a drug, or a driver's license cancelled, suspended, revoked or denied for that cause. You must send the FAA's Civil Aviation Security Division a written report of each one within 60 days, and failing to report is itself grounds. Two motor vehicle actions within 3 years, unless they come from the same incident, are grounds too.
The 40 hours
For an airplane single-engine rating you need at least 40 hours of flight time . At least 20 are training with an instructor. At least 10 are solo. Each of those has its own list, and the items sit inside them. Distances are in nautical miles (NM). The bar shows the three blocks to scale, with what goes inside each one.
The 40-hour foundation
Private pilot · Airplane single-engine · Part 61 minimums
Minimum total flight time
With an instructor
At leastSolo
At leastDual or solo
Remaining timeInside your instructor time
- 3 hCross-country
- 3 hNight
Includes one cross-country of over 100 NM total, and 10 takeoffs and 10 landings to a full stop.
- 3 hBy instruments only
- 3 hCheckride preparation
Within the preceding 2 calendar months from the month of the test.
Inside your solo time
- 5 hSolo cross-country
Includes one flight of 150 NM total, with full-stop landings at three points and one leg of more than 50 NM straight-line distance.
- 3 + 3At a towered airport
3 takeoffs and 3 landings to a full stop.
How this is drawn
Twenty hours with an instructor plus ten solo account for thirty of the required forty hours. The remaining ten may be dual or solo; the 10-hour remainder is arithmetic, not a separately named regulatory requirement. Training may take longer than these minimums.
The night training includes a cross-country of more than 100 NM total and 10 takeoffs and full-stop landings, each involving a flight in the traffic pattern. The solo towered-airport landings also involve the pattern and require an operating control tower. Approved training-device credit and exceptions are not illustrated; see 61.109 and 61.110.
The chapter continues for members.