Advisory Circular 90-109 has been cancelled and updated to 90-109A effective June 29, 2015. For those of you not familiar with this AC, it deals with transitioning to unfamiliar aircraft. As a pilot or instructor this is an important and resourceful document to become familiar with. Research and available data have found that the majority of general aviation accidents occur due to pilot performance errors associated with transitioning to an unfamiliar airplane. In an effort to minimize risk through risk mitigation and increase overall safety in the general aviation sector the FAA and pertinent organizations have put together this AC to be used at the discretion of flight instructors, pilots, and training organizations.
AC 90-109A PURPOSE. This advisory circular (AC) is intended to help plan the transition to any unfamiliar fixed-wing airplanes, including type-certificated (TC) and/or experimental airplanes. It provides information and guidance to owners and pilots of experimental, simple, complex, high-performance, and/or unfamiliar airplanes. It also provides information to flight instructors who teach in these airplanes. This information and guidance contains recommendations for training experience for pilots of experimental airplanes in a variety of groupings based on performance and handling characteristics. This AC does not address the testing of newly built experimental airplanes. The current edition of AC 90-89, Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing Handbook, provides information on such testing. However, if a pilot is planning to participate in a flight test program in an unfamiliar and/or experimental airplane, this AC should be used to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to safely accomplish the test program utilizing the guidance found in AC 90-89.
I encourage you as a pilot, student pilot, flight instructor, or training organization to make full use of the resources available to you and information contained throughout this AC.
The ASA team will be heading to Oshkosh on Friday, July 17th, to begin preparations for the start of EAA AirVenture 2015! Make sure to come by first thing Monday morning (July 20th), we will have a full retail section and product demos on display all week. The ASA booth will be located in Hanger B booths 2075-2079. See you there!
