What A Flight Review Is
A flight review is the recurrent training that keeps a certificated pilot legal to act as pilot in command. Under 14 CFR 61.56 it is a minimum of one hour of ground training and one hour of flight training with an authorized instructor, completed every 24 calendar months and recorded as a logbook endorsement. It is not a checkride. There is no score, no examiner and no pass mark.
Pilots still call it the BFR, for biennial flight review. The FAA dropped the word biennial from the regulation years ago and the section is now headed simply "Flight review", but the old name stuck.
You Fly LA operates from 7900 Balboa Blvd at Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), seven days a week from 9 AM to 9 PM. Instruction is $110 per hour, ground instruction is $110 per hour and a single-engine aircraft is $179 per hour.
What 14 CFR 61.56 Actually Requires
Paragraph (a) sets the content and the floor: "a flight review consists of a minimum of 1 hour of flight training and 1 hour of ground training." It must include, in the regulation's own words, "a review of the current general operating and flight rules of part 91 of this chapter" and "a review of those maneuvers and procedures that, at the discretion of the person giving the review, are necessary for the pilot to demonstrate the safe exercise of the privileges of the pilot certificate."
Read that second clause again, because it is the whole design of the flight review. The regulation does not list the maneuvers. It hands the choice to the instructor and ties it to your certificate and your flying — a private pilot who flies the same forty-mile loop every Sunday and a commercial pilot who crosses the Sierra at night are not exercising the same privileges.
Paragraph (c) sets the clock and the paperwork: no person may act as pilot in command unless, since the beginning of the 24th calendar month before the month in which that pilot acts as pilot in command, that person has accomplished a flight review given in an aircraft for which that pilot is rated by an authorized instructor, and holds a logbook endorsement certifying satisfactory completion.
The 24-Calendar-Month Clock, Read Precisely
People plan this badly because they read "24 months" as a date-to-date anniversary. The regulation is written in calendar months, and that works in your favour: a review flown on any day in March is good through the last day of March two years later, whether it was flown on the 2nd or the 31st. The expiry always lands on a month end. Write it in the front of your logbook.
Why There Is No Pass And No Fail
A flight review is not a practical test. There is no examiner, no application, no Notice of Disapproval and nothing that goes to the FAA. 14 CFR 61.56 contains no provision for failing a flight review, because the only regulatory output is the endorsement described in paragraph (c)(2), and an instructor either writes it or does not. If the instructor is not yet satisfied, nothing is reported and your certificate is unaffected — you simply have not finished the review, and you keep training until it is done.
A related point: the one-hour figures in paragraph (a) are minimums, not targets. An instructor who needs another half hour on the ground to work through the airspace you will actually fly is complying with the regulation, not padding it.
What The Instructor Is Looking For
Because paragraph (a)(2) leaves maneuver selection to the instructor, what is on your flight review depends on the conversation before you walk to the airplane. Instructors who do this well ask three things first: what you fly, where you fly it, and what you have not done in a while.
The ground hour covers the part 91 rules the regulation names, then narrows to the ones you will actually use. In Los Angeles that means airspace, properly: Class D at Van Nuys, the Class B shelf floors overhead, the Class C at Burbank a few miles east, and the transition routes that make a coastal or downtown flight legal rather than improvised. It also means airworthiness and inspection status, required equipment, and weight, balance and performance for the aircraft you actually booked.
The flight hour works through the basics: slow flight, stalls in both configurations, steep turns, ground reference work, a simulated engine failure with a real field chosen and a real checklist flown, and landings that include at least one deliberately awkward — short field, soft field, a no-flap approach, a go-around called late. The instructor is watching how you manage the airplane when the plan changes rather than counting degrees of bank.
If you hold an instrument rating, say so when you book. Paragraph (h) allows the review to be combined with the recent experience requirements of 61.57 at the discretion of the instructor conducting it, so one well-planned flight can serve more than one purpose. What it cannot do is become an instrument proficiency check by accident — that has separate content and a separate regulatory basis.
Currency Rules: Which One Does What
Pilots conflate the flight review with the recency rules. The flight review governs whether you may act as pilot in command at all; the 61.57 rules govern whether you may carry passengers, fly with them at night, or operate under IFR.
| Requirement | Regulation | Interval | What Restores It |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flight review | 14 CFR 61.56 | 24 calendar months | Minimum 1 hour ground plus 1 hour flight with an authorized instructor, endorsed in your logbook |
| Carrying passengers, day | 14 CFR 61.57(a) | 90 days | Three takeoffs and three landings as sole manipulator in the same category, class and type |
| Carrying passengers, night | 14 CFR 61.57(b) | 90 days | Three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop, from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise |
| Instrument currency | 14 CFR 61.57(c) | 6 calendar months | Six instrument approaches, holding procedures and tasks, and intercepting and tracking courses |
| Instrument currency lapsed past the window | 14 CFR 61.57(d) | More than six calendar months out of currency | An instrument proficiency check to the applicable Airman Certification Standards |
A current flight review does nothing for your passenger currency, and three takeoffs and landings do nothing for your flight review. But 61.57(a)(2) lets you act as pilot in command alone under day VFR or day IFR with no persons or property on board other than those necessary for the conduct of the flight, even with lapsed 90-day landings, provided your flight review is current. That is how most pilots go and re-earn their landings.
Due for a review, or somewhere past due? Tell us your total time, what you fly and roughly when you last flew, and you will get an honest estimate of how many sessions this takes rather than a sales pitch.
Call (818) 330-1318 Meet The Instructors
Four Ways To Satisfy A Flight Review Without Flying One
14 CFR 61.56 contains four separate routes that remove the requirement. Pilots pay for reviews they did not need because nobody told them.
A Practical Test Or Proficiency Check
Paragraph (d) exempts a pilot who has, within the period, passed a pilot proficiency check or practical test conducted by an examiner, an approved pilot check airman, or a U.S. Armed Force, for a pilot certificate, rating, or operating privilege. If you added an instrument rating, a multi-engine rating or a commercial certificate inside the window, your checkride already reset the clock. The same paragraph covers the practical test for a flight instructor certificate, an additional rating on one, and the instructor tests under 61.197(b)(1) and 61.199(b)(2).
A Phase Of An FAA-Sponsored Pilot Proficiency Program
Paragraph (e) exempts a pilot who has, within the same period, satisfactorily accomplished one or more phases of an FAA-sponsored pilot proficiency program. The FAA publishes that program under the WINGS name. The credit is real, but the phase has to be genuinely complete, so confirm which activities you still owe before you rely on it.
Flight Instructors And The Ground Hour
Paragraph (f) applies only to instructors, who need not accomplish the one hour of ground training if they satisfactorily completed the recent experience requirements under 61.197 or reinstated privileges through an approved flight instructor refresher course under 61.199(a)(1). Note what it does not say: the flight hour still stands.
Student Pilots
Paragraph (g) removes the requirement for a student pilot undergoing training for a certificate who holds a current solo flight endorsement under 61.87. If you are working toward your private pilot certificate, this is not your problem yet.
Paragraph (i) also permits a simulator or flight training device to meet the requirement, but only under an approved course conducted by a part 142 training center, in a device representing an aircraft for which you are rated, and unless it is approved for landings you must still meet the takeoff and landing requirements of 61.57(a) or (b). Most general aviation reviews do not go through that door. Our Redbird full-motion simulator at $120 per hour is excellent preparation for a review rather than the review itself.
How Long A Flight Review Really Takes
The regulation says two hours, and most pilots take longer. A pilot who flies weekly and has kept up with the airspace often finishes close to the minimum: an hour of focused ground, an hour in the pattern and the practice area, and an endorsement the same afternoon.
A pilot who has flown thirty hours in the last five years is a different exercise. Stick and rudder skills come back quickly, usually inside the first twenty minutes. What comes back slowly is everything that changed while you were away: airspace and chart conventions, ADS-B, the way clearances are phrased now, panel equipment you have never used, and the personal minimums you used to hold without thinking. Budget two or three sessions and treat that as normal rather than as a verdict on your flying. Booking the ground hour separately, as ground instruction on a weekday evening, produces a better review than three hours crammed into one afternoon.
A Flight Review At Van Nuys Is An Airspace Review
Van Nuys is a Class D airport with a full-time tower and two parallel runways running roughly north-south, at about 800 feet of elevation on the western side of the San Fernando Valley, directly underneath the shelves of the Los Angeles Class B. It is one of the busiest general aviation airports in the world, and the weekday traffic mix runs from business jets to news helicopters to trainers in the pattern.
That has two consequences for a returning pilot. The radio work is relentless and the pattern is disciplined, which is exactly where rust shows up. And the ground hour has somewhere real to go: the transition routes over the Santa Monica Mountains, the Class B floors that decide your cruising altitude on the way to the coast, and the terrain north around the Santa Susana Mountains that shapes every practice-area departure.
Summer adds a layer. On a hot Valley afternoon the density altitude at KVNY climbs thousands of feet above the field elevation, and an aircraft near gross weight climbs accordingly. A July review that includes an honest performance calculation before the takeoff rather than after it is worth more than one flown on a perfect winter morning. The stratus season is May and June; our weather and cancellation policy covers what happens when a flight stands down.
What To Bring, And What The Review Does Not Do
Bring your pilot certificate, your medical certificate or BasicMed documentation, your logbook and photo identification — plus the aircraft documents if you fly your own airplane, and your renter's insurance declarations page if you hold a policy.
If the review is a step toward renting, say so at the start. A checkout is the operator's and the insurer's process for releasing you on a specific make and model, and it usually runs alongside the review rather than instead of it. The fleet and the rates are on aircraft rental, aircraft rental at Van Nuys and renting a plane in Los Angeles, and the aircraft themselves are on the fleet page. If the airplane you are heading for is retractable or over 200 horsepower, read complex and high-performance endorsements first, and if your landings have gone stale after dark, night currency and night training covers that separately.
What the review does not do is worth stating plainly. It does not renew your certificate, because your certificate does not expire. It does not renew your medical. It does not give you a rating or an endorsement you did not already hold. It does not make you current to carry passengers and it does not make you instrument current. It does not release you to rent an aircraft, because that is the operator's decision under its insurance policy. And it is not a substitute for proficiency, which has no regulatory interval at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Often Do I Need A Flight Review?
Under 14 CFR 61.56 you may not act as pilot in command unless you have completed a flight review since the beginning of the 24th calendar month before the month in which you fly. In practice, a review flown on any day in March is valid through the last day of March two years later.
Can You Fail A Flight Review?
No. A flight review is not a practical test and 14 CFR 61.56 contains no provision for failing one. The only regulatory output is the logbook endorsement in paragraph (c)(2), so an instructor either signs it or continues training you until they can. Nothing is reported to the FAA and your certificate is unaffected.
How Long Is A Flight Review?
The regulation sets a minimum of one hour of ground training and one hour of flight training. A pilot who flies regularly often finishes close to that minimum. A pilot returning after several years away should plan on two or three sessions, because the airspace, the equipment and the phraseology change faster than stick and rudder skills fade.
What Does A Flight Review Cost At Van Nuys?
Instruction is $110 per hour and ground instruction is also $110 per hour. A single-engine aircraft is $179 per hour, the Diamond DA20-C1 is $229 per hour and the Cirrus SR20, SR22 and SR22T are $479 per hour. Call (818) 330-1318 with your total time and what you want to fly for an estimate before you book.
Does A Checkride Count As A Flight Review?
Yes. 14 CFR 61.56(d) says a pilot who has passed a pilot proficiency check or practical test conducted by an examiner, an approved pilot check airman, or a U.S. Armed Force for a certificate, rating or operating privilege within the period does not need to accomplish the flight review. An instrument rating, a multi-engine rating or a commercial checkride all reset the clock.
What Is The Difference Between A BFR And A Flight Review?
Nothing. BFR stands for biennial flight review, the older name for the same event. The FAA removed the word biennial from the regulation and 14 CFR 61.56 is now headed simply Flight review, but pilots and instructors still use both terms interchangeably.
Can A Flight Review Be Combined With Getting Current Again?
Yes. 14 CFR 61.56(h) allows the requirements of the flight review to be accomplished in combination with the requirements of 61.57 and other applicable recent experience requirements, at the discretion of the authorized instructor conducting the review. Tell the instructor what else you need when you book so the flight can be planned around it.
Book A Flight Review At Van Nuys
Instruction is $110 per hour, ground instruction is $110 per hour and a single-engine aircraft is $179 per hour. We are open 9 AM to 9 PM, seven days, and an instructor answers the phone. Tell us what you fly and when you last flew.
Call (818) 330-1318 Book A Free Consultation Book A Discovery Flight — $229
Not a certificated pilot yet? A discovery flight is the right place to start instead: 60 minutes for $229, flown from the left seat and logged as dual instruction. No tax, no booking fee — $229 is the total.
You Fly LA · 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406 · Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) · Open 9 AM – 9 PM, seven days.