I recently learned something stupid about FAA licensing. Once you have a license higher than “student”, you have to have a biennial flight review in order to fly an aircraft. If you don’t have a current review, you cannot be the pilot in command of any aircraft.
A student pilot does not need a current flight review, just an endorsement from their instructor, in order to fly solo.
So, if you are a former 747 pilot with 10,000 hours in the cockpit, and you seek to add a glider or balloon rating, you are not allowed to solo these aircraft unless you have a current flight review. Since solo flight is a requirement before obtaining these ratings, you cannot get a rating in one of these aircraft without getting a flight review in an aircraft you are already rated for.
A 14 or 16-year-old kid with a few weeks of training is allowed, but the air transport pilot is not.
Yeah it’s stupid, but also something they taught us in the program is, “all of the rules for aviation are written in blood and litigation.” most of the rules are reactive, sure some are proactive but most of them are because something happened.
Nah, even the FAA recognized that this was an oversight; a situation that hadn’t been considered when writing the rule. They said as much in at least one response to a letter requesting clarification. This particular rule wasn’t written in blood. This one was written in “Whoops, I hadn’t considered that.”
It gets better: The flight review requirements are satisfied by the pilot obtaining a new rating. If our pilot completes his ballooning check ride, it resets the clock on his biennial flight review requirement. He is not required to get a separate flight review covering operation of the 747. That’s a bigger oversight, IMO, but a prudent pilot is going to get a review for their “highest” rating, and not exploit this technicality.
Correcting the original issue properly, any rated pilot should be considered a “student” when exercising any flight privileges in an aircraft for which they have never been rated. Every pilot is a “student” unless they have obtained every possible flight rating.
