Gordy, now that's funny question. Surely you're used to some people from outside as well as inside US, who may forget the very basics of renewals/maintaining the validity and privileges of their FAA ratings..
muermel,
I'd not bother with school that insists on going through all the M1 visa paperwork, additional cost and inconvenience, when you can simply do 5hr flight portion flight review.
The regs say MINIMUM 1hr flight 1hr ground. Just because some people want to do the lowest cost/flight time option, sometimes due to their inflated ego, doesn't mean you can't decide to do longer flying.
It's like rental checkout. Companies/schools may state minima, but if one's rusty or wants to get more current/proficient, beyond the CFI OK'ing the person, why not? You're not training towards licence or rating, which would insinuate the need for student visa.
If your instructor certificate's expiry isn't too long from now, you may consider renewing it. You've probably done it at least once, wildly guessing from your pprune registration date. No need for fiddling with affidavits/certified copies/IACRA from abroad. I know one guy who seems to be a victim of the Govt shutdown last year, doing online FIRC and IACRA application for the renewal and somewhere between CLICK sending it and few months ago,
hiccup happened, company claiming no fault, FSDO saying they'd not renew the CFI/CFII certificate, new eFIRC doens't make sense since his first CFII expired last autumn and not renewed due to some mystery snag. I tried to get more info from him to ascertain the crux of issue.
So yeah, bottom line, (lifetime - cheaper) FIRC online and dropping in to local FSDO with 8710 and other docs and done.
I've renewed my CFI on Friday the 13th and no snag.
Other than over 3 months till the plastic certificate showed up in post, due to the funding/staffing of FAA last year.
TSA? What for? You mean SEVIS (for M1 visa)? You've got your FAA ratings. Are you gonna do TWIN RATING, needing TSA paperwork? You've got your initial FAA and IR, so if you finished those/have licenses or ratings issued, the only other TSA unless counting some airliner TRs, in GA, is multi engine rating.