Instrument rating, airplane

So you want to fly in the clouds. Here is the instrument rating.

This page is the instrument-airplane rating in § 61.65. Helicopter and powered-lift instrument ratings are a different paragraph in that same section. The numbers below are what that section says. They are not a flight school syllabus.

Who can apply

§ 61.65(a)(1) says you must hold at least a current private pilot certificate, or be concurrently applying for one, with an airplane rating appropriate to the instrument rating sought. § 61.65(a)(2) is the English requirement. The medical you need is the one for the pilot certificate you are exercising. That table is § 61.23.

Knowledge test

§ 61.65(a)(3) says you receive and log ground training from an authorized instructor, or accomplish a home-study course, on the aeronautical knowledge areas in § 61.65(b). § 61.65(a)(4) is the endorsement that you are prepared for the knowledge test. § 61.65(a)(7) says you pass that test, unless you already hold an instrument rating. For airplane, the test code is IRA. The FAA allots 2.0 hours.

§ 61.65(b) lists the knowledge areas: the rules that apply to IFR, the Aeronautical Information Manual, air traffic control procedures, IFR navigation and approaches, en route and approach charts, weather reports and forecasts, safe and efficient IFR operation, critical weather and windshear, aeronautical decision making, and crew resource management.

By Pilots prepares you for the instrument rating airplane knowledge test only. It does not train you in the airplane, it does not endorse you, and it does not give you the checkride. If a sentence here and the linked section disagree, the section wins.

Pass the written before you spend those hours with an instructor in the airplane. Academic mastery first means the flight lessons move faster, cost less, and you get on with a flying career.

Schedule the FAA knowledge test at PSI

Experience and the practical test

§ 61.65(a)(5) and § 61.65(c) are the flight training on the areas of operation. § 61.65(a)(6) is the endorsement that you are prepared for the practical test. § 61.65(a)(8) is passing that test. For the airplane rating, § 61.65(d) says you must have logged:

• Except as § 61.65(g) provides, 50 hours of cross-country time as pilot in command, of which 10 hours must have been in an airplane.
• 40 hours of actual or simulated instrument time in the areas of operation in § 61.65(c), of which 15 hours must have been received from an authorized instructor who holds an instrument-airplane rating.
• That instrument time includes 3 hours of instrument flight training from an authorized instructor in an airplane appropriate to the rating, within 2 calendar months before the date of the practical test.
• It also includes one cross-country flight in an airplane with an authorized instructor, under instrument flight rules, with a flight plan filed, of 250 nautical miles along airways or by directed routing, an instrument approach at each airport, and three different kinds of approaches with the use of navigation systems.

Simulator and training-device credit is capped in the section. § 61.65(h) allows a maximum of 30 hours in a full flight simulator or flight training device when the time is completed under part 142, and a maximum of 20 hours when it is not. § 61.65(i) allows a maximum of 10 hours in a basic aviation training device, or 20 hours in an advanced one, when the device and the training are FAA-approved and an authorized instructor provides the time. § 61.65(j) says that, except as § 61.65(h)(1) provides, you may not credit more than 20 total hours of that device time toward the instrument time in this section.