Comparing Currency: GA Pilots vs. Airline Pilots

At the airlines, the familiar requirements of FAR 61.57 are superseded by FAR 121.43. [File Photo: Adobe Stock]

Do airline crews have the same recency requirements as GA pilots?

At the airlines, the familiar requirements of FAR 61.57 are superseded by FAR 121.439, which also requires three takeoffs and landings every 90 days but specifies the same aircraft type, with no differentiation between day and night operations. Lapsed recency can only be reestablished under the supervision of a check airman and must include a V₁ cut and an ILS approach to the lowest authorized minimums. Reestablishing landing currency in the simulator has always been a routine chore for international relief pilots—but during the pandemic, many domestic pilots were also sent to do their “bounces in the box."

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Airline Crews Airline Pilots ask flying GA pilots Pilots recency

Sam WeigelAuthor

Sam Weigel has been an airplane nut since an early age, and when he's not flying the Boeing 737 for work, he enjoys going low and slow in vintage taildraggers. He and his wife live west of Seattle, where they are building an aviation homestead on a private 2,400-foot grass airstrip.