Every instrument-rated pilot needs to meet a 6-month currency including 6 hours of instrument time and 6 approaches in actual or simulated IMC conditions (CAR’s 401.05 (3.1)). The requirement can be met in an aircraft or approved simulator.
For GA pilots, maintaining their instrument currency can be a challenge. Typically their aircraft are not approved for icing conditions, which limits IMC flight opportunities in the colder months. Many flights that are filed under IFR may only have a small portion of the flight time that meets the IMC requirement.
Genesis’s ALSIM 250 is a Transport Canada-approved simulator that can help pilots retain their instrument currency. The ALSIM 250 with the instructor assigned for the session can:
✓ Create various IMC conditions at any airport the pilot selects
✓ Move the aircraft to any point on earth, saving extended flight times to an approach and enabling more approaches to be completed during a session
✓ Create situations/failures to enhance the training that a pilot may not wish to do in an aircraft
✓ Allow pilots to book more currency-eligible time by reducing the ineligible time encountered in an aircraft during a flight
Currency-building time can be booked in Genesis’s ALSIM 250 for $240/hour with a typical session being 2 hours. A package of 6 hours of simulator time with an instructor can be purchased for $1,300, plus any ground briefing required, with the hours used at the pilot’s discretion (provided the simulator is available). Training sessions can be scheduled weeks in advance with no concern for weather cancelling the session.
FOR REFERFENCE ONLY
401.05 – Recency Requirements
- (3.1)No holder of a Canadian pilot licence endorsed with an instrument rating or to which is attached instrument rating privileges shall exercise the privileges of the instrument rating unless, following the first day of the 13th month after the completion date of a test referred to in subsection (3) and within six months before the flight, the holder has
- (a) acquired six hours of instrument time; and
- (b) completed six instrument approaches in an aircraft in actual or simulated instrument meteorological conditions, or in a Level B, C or D simulator or an approved flight training device configured for the same category as the aircraft
- (i) under the supervision of a person who holds the qualifications referred to in subsection 425.21(9) of Standard 425 — Flight Training, or
- (ii) while acting as a flight instructor conducting training in respect of the endorsement of a flight crew licence or permit with an instrument rating.
