Under the new rule, many aircraft that have traditionally been off-limits to sport pilots may now be flown by them. These include aircraft like Cessna 172s and Piper Warriors. So long as the clean stall speeds of these aircraft fall within the 59-knot calibrated airspeed limitation and comply with a few other limitations, they can be flown on a driver’s license under § 61.23(c)(1)(ii).
We have seen a lot of interest from private pilots who flew under BasicMed or a third-class medical certificate who now want to fly under sport pilot privileges. These pilots need to be aware of all the operating limitations imposed on sport pilots. Some of them are easy to find. But some require a little bit more thought to piece together. Let’s look at one example: whether a private pilot with an instrument rating can exercise the privileges of that instrument rating while flying on his driver’s license.
After MOSAIC, the privileges and limitations of a sport pilot certificate are listed in § 61.315 while the performance characteristics of the aircraft a sport pilot may fly are listed in § 61.316. Of course, a pilot looking at only § 61.315 will not see anything that says “no sport pilot may operate under instrument flight rules.” To the contrary, § 61.315(c)(12) prohibits sport pilots from operating “[w]hen the flight or surface visibility is less than 3 statute miles” while § 61.315(c)(13) prohibits sport pilots from operating “[w]ithout visual reference to the surface.” Reading only § 61.315, one could be forgiven for thinking that a private pilot with an instrument rating could operate as a sport pilot under an IFR clearance so long as he or she maintained the visibility requirements listed in § 61.315.
But the FARs are not written in a vacuum and looking at any one regulation alone paints an incomplete picture. With respect to an instrument rating, we must look to a few other regulations. For one, under § 61.3, “[n]o person may act as pilot in command of a civil aircraft under IFR . . . unless that person holds the appropriate aircraft category, class, and type and instrument rating on that person’s pilot certificate.” So to act as PIC under IFR, a person needs an instrument rating on their pilot certificate. What then are the requirements for an instrument rating? For that, we must look at § 61.65, which outlines the instrument rating requirements. Under § 61.65, subsection (1), requires that an applicant for an instrument rating must “[h]old at least a current private pilot certificate, or be concurrently applying for private pilot certificate, with an airplane, helicopter, or powered-lift rating appropriate to the instrument rating sought.” In short, an instrument rating cannot be attached to a certificate that is less than a private pilot certificate. And because a sport pilot certificate is less than a private pilot certificate, an instrument rating cannot be on a sport pilot certificate. Thus, sport pilots may not fly under IFR.
Again, of course, this analysis goes well beyond a simple review of § 61.315, which would create a false impression if that was all a pilot looked at. There are hundreds of regulations under Title 14. While the FAA’s success is certainly debatable, the FAA’s intent surely was that each regulation fit together coherently with the others to create a sensible, consistent regulatory scheme. As the old saying goes, we cannot miss the forest for the trees. And when we take a myopic view of regulations—such as looking only at § 61.315 rather than a broader understanding of how Part 61 works—we risk missing that forest and what it means for our flying.
