Hidden Sport Pilot Limitations you Need to Know

In this video, I want to talk about the limitations to sport pilots. Sport pilots are able to fly without a medical certificate and only a driver’s license. Therefore, there are more limitations imposed on them. Ultimately, they are limited to light sport aircraft or LSAs and VFR day flights. But there are some other limitations as well covered in FAR 61.315 that I want to talk about in this video. light sport aircraft or LSAs. An aircraft not intended for water use with a 1,320 lb max certificated gross weight. An aircraft with a maximum of two seats. So these are what this is the definition of a light sport aircraft per the FAA. An aircraft without retractable landing gear. Examples include restricted experimental or weight shift control. So, restricted aircraft could be something that looks like this. You know, experimental could look like this and weight shift kind of looks like that. So, just to give you an idea of some examples of these types of aircraft. Other sport pilot limitations beyond just the definition of that you can only fly those light sport aircraft, which again are 1,320 lb max gross weight, maximum of two seats, and without retractable landing gear.

So, what are these other limitations? Well, a sport pilot may not so all of these are negatives, right? They a sport pilot may not pay less than half the operating expenses of a flight. Carry a passenger or property for compensation or higher. Fly for compensation or higher. Fly in furtherance of a business. Fly while carrying more than one passenger. And that makes sense because a light sport aircraft only has a maximum of two seats. Continuing, a sport pilot may not fly at night and here night is defined as the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, not sunset. So what is civil twilight exactly? Well, there are technically three types of twilights as you can see from this figure here from the National Weather Service. There’s civil, nautical, and astronomical. Civil twilight is the in the morning is defined as so here the morning is the sunrise. So, civil twilight in the morning is defined as the time in which the sun is 6° you can see this 6° right here. So 6° below the horizon as it’s going up. So imagine the sun’s coming up like this and then going down over here. So over here in the morning when it’s six degrees below the horizon but coming up and the first bit of light starts to appear when we’re kind of at 6°. They kind of show this here I guess astronomical they they’re showing there’s a little bit of light coming and then nautical a little bit more and then civil a little bit more light and they define civil as 6° below as it’s coming up and then civil twilight. So, as the sun goes down all the way down to sunset and then when it’s 6° below the horizon after going down and after having the sunset as the last bit of light disappears before it’s completely night. Okay, so that’s what civil twilight is. And so again, if we go back, sport pilots may not fly at night. And the  FAA definition for night in this case is between those two civil twilights. So between the morning civil twilight and the evening civil twilights, not between sunsets. So some  FAA requirements and FARS are use a different definition of night. They for some reason they like to make it difficult on us, but for this definition that’s what it is.

All right. So other sport pilot. So let’s continue on. A sport pilot may not fly in class A airspace. You have to have be IFR rated. Sport pilots cannot be IFR rated. Cannot fly in class Bravo, Charlie or Delta airspace or at an airport located in class Bravo, Delta or sorry, class Bravo, Charlie or Delta airspace unless they meet the requirements at FAR 61.325. So there is an unless on flying in class Bravo, Charlie and Delta or at an airport located in class Bravo, Charlie or Delta. And then you can’t fly to, from, through, or at an airport having an operational control tower unless again you meet the requirements in FAR61.325. We’ll talk about what this unless is and the requirements in FAR61.325 right now. So FAR61325, it describes the training and experience required to be logged in order to receive an endorsement to be able to fly in these areas. class Bravo, Charlie or Delta airspace or at an airport in those airspaces or at an airport with an operational control tower. So in other words, you can operate in these areas as a sport pilot as long as you receive training in those areas from an instructor and they endorse your log book for that training. So continuing on with some more limitations, a sport pilot may not fly outside the US. This is unless you have prior authorization from the country in which you seek to operate. But sport pilots generally the certificates generally start with holder something on there that says holder does not meet IKO requirements. A sport pilot may not fly over densely populated areas if the aircraft is restricted or experimental. So restricted and experimental are some common examples of sport pilot light sport aircraft. And if you’re flying one of those, you cannot fly over densely populated areas. You cannot fly to demonstrate the aircraft in flight to a prospective buyer. If you are an aircraft salesperson, you cannot fly in a passenger carrying airlift sponsored by a charitable organization. You cannot fly at an altitude of more than 10,000 ft MSL or 2,000 ft AGL, whichever is higher. So, this can kind of be a little bit confusing on the whichever is higher. Kind of makes you think a little bit. So, let’s take a look here. So, for example, say we have the terrain you see on the screen 2,000 ft AGL is 2,000 ft above the ground. So when in areas of mountains or higher terrain, this 2,000 ft AGL line, you know, goes up and it go it goes to different MSL values. But over flat ground at sea level, like here, 2,000 ft AL is at the same level as 2,000 ft MSL. But up here, right at above this peak, 2,00 it’s still 2,000 ft AGL because we’re 2,000 ft above this peak. But this would be 7,000 ft MSL. Again, even up here, we’re technically 2,000 feet AGL, but we’re 12,000 feet MSL. So, the regulations said that sport pods cannot fly at more than 10,000 ft MSL. So, we put this 10,000 ft MSL line here, or 2,000 ft AGL, whichever is higher. So, here we see the 10,000 ft MSL is, and we see locations where 2,000 ft AGL is lower than that, like here and here, and all these locations here. But we also see above this highest peak right where 200 feet AGL is actually above this 10,000 foot line. So that’s kind of why the FAA has this, you know, whichever is higher thing. So technically, if your aircraft is was flying above the lower peak here, you would be at 2,000 ft AGL. So we’re 2,000 ft AGL above this peak right at the moment we we snapshot this picture, but you’re at 7,000 ft MSL. So the higher altitude limit would be in this case because you can the requirement says you cannot fly at above 10,000 feet MSL or 2,000 feet AGL whichever is higher. So the higher limit in this case is 10,000 ft. So in this case you technically would be allowed to fly here as a sport pilot because you’re not over this higher limit which in this case is the 10,000 ft MSL line. now. And technically, even if your aircraft was up above the highest peak, you could still be allowed to fly up here if your aircraft could get you up that high. In this case, 2,000 ft AGL is the higher of the two limits. Right? It says 10,000 ft MSL or 2,000 ft AL, whichever is higher. In this case, above this peak, this highest peak, 2,000 ft AGL is the higher limit. So, if you are right below 2,000 ft at or below 2,000 ft AGL above this highest peak, you technically would be allowed to fly as a sport pilot because you’re remaining below the higher requirement of 2,000 ft AGL here even though it’s at 12,000 ft at MSL. So, that’s what they kind of mean there. But anything higher than the higher limit is not allowed. So, if you were here, you’re above that 2,000 ft AGL, which is the higher limit here. over here, the higher limit, 20,000 feet AL is here. So the higher limit is the 10,000 foot line and you’re above that here. And then same thing over here because the 2,000 foot AGL line here. So that’s what it means. So hopefully that visual aid helped you guys make sense of that.

All right, so continuing on with our sport pilot limitations. Sport pilot may not fly when the flight service or visibility is less than three statute miles. Okay. So this is again VFR pointing towards VFR flight only. Fly without visual reference to the surface. Fly cannot fly above 120 knots of air speed. And cannot fly contrary to any operating limitation placed on the airworthiness certificate of the aircraft. This goes for all pilots in general, but they threw this in there. A sport pilot may also not fly contrary to any limit on your pilot certificate or airman medical coat certificate or any other limit or endorsement from an authorized instructor. So again, same thing for any pilot certificate. Again, we’re just covering them all at this point. So it’s not specific to sport pilots. One example of that is some private pilots because private pilots are allowed to fly at night even though sport pilots are not. It would be on their medical certificate if they’re color blind, they can’t fly at night because they have to be able to see at night. So on their medical certificate it might say not allowed to fly at night or something like that. So that would be a limitation that this is talking about right? So they may not fly contrary to any limit placed on that medical certificate. So that that limit placed on them was yeah you can’t fly at night because you can’t see colors and at night we really need to see colors. So that’s that’s just an example of what that might be. Sport pilot may also not fly contrary to any restriction or limitation on your US driver’s license or any imposed by judicial or administrative order because because a sport pilot can use a US driver’s license in lie of a medical certificate then also cannot fly contrary to any limitation on that driver’s license. So if you’ve had a bunch of DUIs or something and on your driver’s license it says you know you can’t operate vehicles without a taking a breathalyzer or something. I don’t know, maybe that’s an example of, you know, a restriction or limitation on your driver’s license. And then sport pilots cannot fly while towing any object. Furthermore, cannot act as pilot flight crew member on any aircraft for which more than one pilot is required by the type certificate of the aircraft. So large aircrafts require multiple pilots, you know. So that would be an example there. A sport pilot may not fly if the aircraft has a VH greater than 87 knots calibrated air speed unless the pilot has met FAR 61.327A or has a VH of less than or equal to 87 knots calibrated air speed unless pilot has met FAR 61.327 A and actually this one should be B. So there’s two parts. There’s FAR61.327B and FAR61.327A and part B relates to flying aircraft with VH greater than 87 knots. And then part A talks about it less than 87 knots. So what is VH? Well, VH is the maximum speed and level flight with maximum continuous power for your aircraft. and FAR61.327A and 61.327B describes the training and experience required to receive an endorsement to fly an LSA either greater than 87 or less than 87 knots calibrated air speed. So what does this mean? This is essentially just describing slightly different training for a sport pod certificate depending on the capabilities of your LSA. So that’s kind of grouping them into two different based off VH which again VH is the maximum speed and level flight with maximum continuous power for your aircraft. So we’re grouping the FAA is grouping a light sport aircraft into two categories. One greater than 87 knots calibrated air speed of VH and one less than or equal to that. And then basically a sport pilot can’t fly if they haven’t done the the necessary training for those areas. And your flight instructor should know this and be doing the correct training based off the aircraft that you’re training .