If you're working on your Instrument Rating — or you just pinned it on and are figuring out how to keep it usable — instrument currency is the rule you'll live with for the rest of your flying life. It's also the one pilots most consistently get wrong, usually because they learned it from a hangar conversation instead of the regulation.
The mnemonic is 6 HITS. Let's decode it, and then let's talk about the parts the mnemonic doesn't tell you — which is where most of the trouble lives.
The Mnemonic
6 HITS unpacks like this:
- 6 — Six instrument approaches
- H — Holding procedures and tasks
- I — Intercepting courses
- T — Tracking courses (through the use of navigational electronic systems)
- S — Within the preceding Six calendar months
That's 14 CFR 61.57(c)(1), and the regulation's actual wording is worth reading once: within the 6 calendar months preceding the month of the flight, you must have performed and logged those tasks, in actual weather conditions or under simulated conditions using a view-limiting device.
Meet that, and you may act as pilot in command under IFR or in weather below VFR minimums. Miss it, and you may not — even if you feel perfectly sharp.
"Six Calendar Months" Is Not "180 Days"
This trips up more pilots than anything else in the section, and it works in your favor.
The clock runs on calendar months preceding the month of the flight. The day of the month you flew is irrelevant.
Work an example. You fly a currency session on March 3rd. The six calendar months preceding the month of your flight are September, October, November, December, January, and February — so that March 3rd work counts for flights through the end of September. You get the remainder of March plus six full months.
Pilots who mentally convert this to "180 days" cheat themselves out of weeks of currency every cycle. Pilots who assume the window is generous in the other direction get an unpleasant surprise. Count calendar months.
Where You're Allowed to Do It
Here's a section that changed and that a lot of older articles still describe incorrectly.
Under 61.57(c)(2), you may accomplish those tasks in a full flight simulator, flight training device, or aviation training device, provided the device represents the category of aircraft for the privileges you're maintaining and you perform the tasks in simulated instrument conditions.
And then the sentence that matters most: a person may complete the instrument experience in any combination of an aircraft, full flight simulator, flight training device, or aviation training device.
Any combination. Four approaches in the airplane and two in an approved ATD is fine. There's no longer a separate, more restrictive set of hoops for ATD time the way older versions of this rule imposed.
Three Myths Worth Killing
"The six approaches have to be six different types." They don't. The regulation says six instrument approaches. It doesn't specify types, facilities, or that they be flown at different airports. Flying six different approaches is better practice — but it isn't what the rule requires, and conflating the two confuses students.
"You have to be in actual IMC." No. Actual weather conditions or simulated conditions using a view-limiting device both satisfy the rule. That's precisely why a decent view limiting device is one of the highest-value pieces of gear an instrument pilot owns — it's the difference between needing a low overcast to stay legal and being able to stay current on any clear Saturday.
"I can just go do it myself." If you're flying in simulated conditions under a hood, you need a qualified safety pilot in the other seat. That requirement doesn't live in 61.57 — it's in 91.109 — which is exactly why reading currency rules in isolation gets people in trouble.
Log It Properly or It Didn't Happen
The regulation says "performed and logged." A currency session you didn't record correctly is a currency session you can't claim.
Under 61.51, logging instrument time for 61.57(c) purposes requires recording the location and type of each instrument approach accomplished, along with the other required entries.
A kneeboard with a simple approach log on it saves you reconstructing this from memory three days later, which is how entries get vague and eventually useless.
When You Fall Out of Currency
This is the part with real teeth, and it's a two-stage process most pilots misread as one.
Stage one — lapsed but recoverable. The moment you no longer meet 61.57(c), you can't act as PIC under IFR. But you can go re-establish currency by flying the 6 HITS tasks with a safety pilot or instructor. No check required.
Stage two — IPC territory. Under 61.57(d)(1), a person who has failed to meet the instrument experience requirements for more than six calendar months may reestablish instrument currency only by completing an instrument proficiency check.
So you effectively get a six-calendar-month recovery window after your currency lapses. Blow past that, and an IPC becomes mandatory.
Two useful details about the IPC itself. First, it must cover the areas of operation in the applicable Airman Certification Standards — the ACS is incorporated by reference into the regs under 61.14, so an IPC is measured against a published standard, not your instructor's mood. Second, 61.57(d)(3) lists who may give one, and an authorized instructor is on that list. You don't need a DPE. Your CFII can do it.
If you're heading toward an IPC or a checkride, working through the ASA Instrument Oral Exam Guide alongside your Instrument Pre-Tabbed FAR/AIM is the fastest way to get comfortable with the phrasing you'll actually be asked — and being able to open 61.57 in seconds rather than scrolling a phone is worth more than it sounds.
Currency Is a Floor, Not a Verdict
Worth saying plainly: currency and proficiency are different things.
Six approaches in a simulator on the last day of the sixth month makes you legal. It does not necessarily make you ready for a night approach to minimums in turbulence with a passenger who's asking questions.
The regulation sets the bare minimum the FAA will tolerate. Your personal standard should be higher — and if you're honest with yourself about the gap on a given day, that's not weakness, that's the judgment the rating was supposed to produce.
The Takeaway
6 HITS — six approaches, holding, intercepting, tracking, within six calendar months — is 61.57(c) in five characters. Count calendar months rather than days, use any combination of aircraft and approved devices, log the location and type of every approach, and know that once you're more than six calendar months lapsed, only an IPC gets you back.
Then fly to a standard higher than the one the regulation sets, because the rule was written to keep you legal and your judgment is what keeps you alive.
For more resources to support your training, visit NorthstarVFR.com.