Flying Club Checkout Requirements: What to Require of Members

The FAA doesn't require a flying club checkout. In a 2017 legal interpretation written to a flight school, it said it "does not have a regulatory requirement for a flight instructor to conduct a checkout for insurance purposes." Your insurer usually does want one, so flying club checkout requirements end up as a club decision that sits between the FAA floor and the policy's higher one. The club's own rules, and a record showing each member met them, are what get a claim paid.

A sensible rule set requires an initial checkout in each make and model before a member flies it solo, a current flight review and medical on file, a recurrent check whose interval depends on how much the member flies, and a ride with an instructor after a stretch of not flying. Then set every number at or above what your policy's pilot warranty asks for.

1. What the FAA requires of every member

These apply to every pilot, club member or not, so treat them as the minimum a club rule can sit on top of.

• Flight review (14 CFR 61.56). At least 1 hour of flight training and 1 hour of ground training with an authorized instructor, completed since the beginning of the 24th calendar month before the month you act as pilot in command. A practical test for a certificate or rating, or a phase of an FAA-sponsored proficiency program such as WINGS, counts in its place.
• Passenger currency (61.57(a)). Three takeoffs and three landings in the preceding 90 days as sole manipulator of the controls, in the same category and class (and type, if a type rating is required). In a tailwheel airplane they have to be full-stop landings in a tailwheel airplane.
• Night currency (61.57(b)). To carry passengers between 1 hour after sunset and 1 hour before sunrise, three takeoffs and three full-stop landings in that same window within the preceding 90 days.
• Instrument currency (61.57(c)). Six approaches, holding procedures and tasks, and intercepting and tracking courses within the 6 calendar months before the month of the flight, to act as pilot in command under IFR.

None of that mentions the club's airplane. A club checkout is a club rule, and it usually exists because the insurer wants one.

2. Why your insurance policy sets the real minimum

Most club policies cover members under an open pilot warranty instead of naming each pilot. Avemco describes the warranty as the part of the policy that spells out the qualifications any pilot must meet to be covered: total hours, time in type, sometimes an instrument rating, and a recent flight review. A member who flies without meeting it can leave the club without hull or liability coverage for that flight.

Avemco's advice is that "the bylaws should mirror the open pilot warranty." If the policy says 10 hours in type and a CFI checkout, the club rule says at least that.

3. What should a club member checkout cover?

The Brookings Flying Club in Oregon publishes its checkout standard, and it's specific. Before the checkout starts the member needs an active flying membership, a current pilot certificate, a current medical or completed BasicMed, current charts or an EFB, and logbooks covering the last 24 months. The checkout itself has to be at least 30 minutes of ground and 1 hour of flight, and every part of it has to be finished within 30 days of starting.

It covers a lot more than stalls and landings:

• The member schedules the flight and can say when the annual was done and how many hours are left to the next maintenance item.
• Fueling with the club card, fueling away from base, and the reimbursement form.
• Covers, plugs, the engine heater, oil, fuel sampling, and the emergency equipment on board.
• The panel, radio by radio: the GPS navigator, the second nav/com, and the transponder and ADS-B.

It also scales with the pilot. A member who hasn't logged 6 hours PIC in the last 12 months gets a longer comprehensive checkout, unless they've done a flight review in a club airplane in the last 24 months. A member without recent cross-country time gets a dual cross-country add-on. The checkout gets longer for the pilot who needs it and stays short for the one who doesn't.

4. How often should members be re-checked?

Clubs disagree here, and AOPA's flying club newsletter once collected the range. Some require an annual check ride with a club instructor, and one pairs it with WINGS so it doubles as the flight review. Some go every six months. Several require a checkout after inactivity, such as 90 days without flying. One club with an Arrow wants five landings in 90 days. The Flying Club of Kansas City dropped its annual check flight for everyone and now requires it only for members who fly fewer than 30 hours a year.

Kansas City's approach is the one we'd copy. A member flying 80 hours a year in the club 172 is more current than any annual check can make them. The member who flies 12 hours a year is the one the checkout exists for.

5. A sample policy for flying club checkout and currency requirements

This is our suggestion. It isn't an industry standard, and nothing here comes from the FAA or an insurer. Treat every number as a placeholder until you've checked it against your policy, and where the warranty asks for more, the warranty wins.

1. Initial checkout, everyone. A checkout with a club CFI in each make and model before the first solo flight in it, finished within 30 days of starting, with the CFI's signoff filed in the member's club record.
2. Paperwork on file, everyone. A current flight review, medical or BasicMed, and the certificate and ratings the member plans to use. Expired paperwork means no booking.
3. Active members, 30 or more hours a year in club aircraft. An annual check flight with a club CFI, which can be the same flight as the member's flight review in the year it's due.
4. Light flyers, under 30 hours a year. A check flight every six months.
5. Gone quiet. No flight in that make and model in 90 days means a ride with a CFI before the next solo flight. The 61.57 landing rule only protects passengers; this one covers the pilot flying alone.
6. Complex, high-performance, and tailwheel aircraft. A six-month recheck for everyone who flies them, regardless of hours. Gear-up landings and ground loops are the expensive claims, and they happen in these airplanes.
7. Night and IFR. Separate signoffs, plus the member's 61.57(b) or (c) currency confirmed before a night or IFR flight.

Write the tiers into the operating rules, give the board authority to require a check flight at any time for cause, and decide in advance what lapsing means. We'd have a lapsed member lose solo booking privileges until the check flight is done, while dual flights with a club CFI stay open. That gives them an obvious way back.

6. If it isn't written down, it didn't happen

Avemco tells the story of a club outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, whose member landed the club Mooney gear up. The pilot was in good standing, but the club's squadron book had no checkout entry, so the insurer denied the hull claim and the members paid the $62,000 repair themselves. Avemco's phrase is that checkout records "become the case file when something happens." For every member, keep the date of each checkout and the aircraft it was in, the CFI who gave it, the next due date under your tier rules, and copies of the flight review endorsement and medical. A paper squadron book works if one person owns it.

One maintenance side effect to know about. In the same 2017 letter, the FAA said a checkout with flight training in it counts as flight instruction, and a school or other organization that provides both the airplane and a paid instructor can trigger the 100-hour inspection rule, even when the instructor's cost is folded into membership fees. If your club runs checkouts with its own paid CFIs, read the 100-hour post before your next board meeting.