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Question on Instrument Currency

Asked by: 4408 views FAA Regulations, General Aviation, Instrument Rating

Hi all, 61.57 specifies certain tasks that must accomplished in order to maintain IFR currency one of which is "Intercepting and tracking courses through the use of navigation systems." I'm just wondering how you would interpret this statement when it comes to instrument approaches. My two cents: I would interpret an ILS apporoach that involves INTERCEPTING and TRACKING the localizer course (clearance is "fly heading xxx maintain xxx till established on the localizer") as meeting this requirement. I would interpret a GPS approach that involves flying direct to an IAF as NOT meeting this requirement - I would be TRACKING the approach course but not INTERCEPTING the approach course. See about 2/3 of the way down this page: https://bonanza.org/forums/index.php?topic=2050.25;wap2 Thoughts? Matt      

1 Answers



  1. John D Collins on Jun 07, 2015

    I understand the purpose of the requirement “Intercepting and tracking courses through the use of navigational electronic systems” is intended to preclude the entire flight and approach being conducted by radar vectors and not actually using electronic navigation systems. Any type of approach, RNAV, ILS, VOR, or NDB satisfies this requirement. A PAR or Radar approach does not.

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