Training and Qualification Requirements for Check Airmen and Flight Instructors

Some experienced pilots who would otherwise qualify as flight instructors or check airmen but who are not medically eligible to hold the requisite medical certificates, cannot perform flight instructor or check airmen functions even in simulators. This rule establishes separate requirements for check airmen who check only in flight simulators and flight instructors who instruct only in flight simulators. To ensure an equivalent level of safety, the affected check airmen and flight instructors must accomplish the following: Recency of experience requirements; completion of an approved line observation program within each 12-month period; and required training, including recurrent ground and flight training. Additionally, this rule allows check airman and flight instructors to obtain all of their flight training in simulators, as opposed to the current scheme in which initial and transition flight training must include an in-flight element.