Bizarre as it might sound having had an FAA IR for more than three years now I've recently re-read the FARs on instrument currency and confused myself a bit....
I always assumed that say I want to fly IFR on a give day...to determine if I'm current or not I simply count backwards from the day of the flight six months (so lets say since today is 22nd October I count back to 22nd April) and if I have done 6 approaches + holding in that time I'm good to go...
But on the exact wording from 61.57 is:
"(1) Use of an airplane, powered-lift, helicopter, or airship for maintaining instrument experience. Within the 6 calendar months preceding the month of the flight, that person performed and logged at least the following tasks and iterations in an airplane, powered-lift, helicopter, or airship, as appropriate, for the instrument rating privileges to be maintained in actual weather conditions, or under simulated conditions using a view-limiting device that involves having performed the following--
(i) Six instrument approaches.
(ii) Holding procedures and tasks.
(iii) Intercepting and tracking courses through the use of navigational electronic systems."
Now what has confused me a bit is the wording "preceding the month of the flight" since that implies that if I want to go IFR on 22nd October I can in fact count approaches as far back as 1st April...so OK not sure about that...?
That leads me onto my second question...the above wording would also imply that if I want to do flying on 22nd October and I had 6 approaches say all earlier in October I wouldn't be current because they weren't completed in the 6 months "preceding the month of the flight"...surely that can't be correct though?
I'm unsure of the definition of "calender month", does it literally mean a period of 28 days or does it mean a specific discrete month ie January or June or whatever?