Required Aircraft Documents (ARROW)

ARROW is a mnemonic US pilots use to remember the documents that must be carried aboard a civil aircraft when it is operated. The underlying requirements come mainly from 14 CFR 91.203, which lists the certifications an aircraft must carry, and 14 CFR 91.9, which requires that the aircraft's operating limitations be available. The FAA discusses aircraft documents and flight-manual requirements in the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (FAA-H-8083-25), Chapter 9, Flight Manuals and Other Documents.

The letters stand for Airworthiness certificate, Registration certificate, Radio station license, Operating limitations, and Weight and balance. Each has its own rules. The airworthiness certificate must be an appropriate and current certificate displayed at the cabin or cockpit entrance so it is legible to passengers and crew. A standard airworthiness certificate does not carry a fixed expiration date; it remains effective as long as the aircraft is maintained in accordance with its type design and the applicable inspection, maintenance, airworthiness-directive, and preservation requirements. Special airworthiness certificates, by contrast, may carry durations and conditions.

The registration certificate must be a current, effective certificate issued to the aircraft's owner. Following an FAA rule that took effect in January 2023, US aircraft registration certificates are valid for seven years from the month of issue, extended from the previous three-year term. The certificate must be aboard the aircraft.

The radio station license is the letter that trips people up, because it is not required for domestic US operations. The FCC eliminated that requirement for domestic flights; an aircraft radio station license, issued by the FCC rather than the FAA, is only required when the aircraft is operated internationally. Many training aircraft that never leave US airspace therefore do not carry one, which is why ARROW is often taught with the caveat that the second R applies to international flying.

Operating limitations must be available in the aircraft, as required by 14 CFR 91.9. For most modern aircraft these are contained in the FAA-approved Airplane Flight Manual or the Pilot's Operating Handbook, supplemented by placards, instrument markings, and any other approved documents. Older aircraft may carry their limitations in a combination of a manual, placards, and markings rather than a single POH.

Weight and balance information, specific to the individual aircraft, must also be aboard so the pilot can compute loading for each flight. This is the aircraft's current equipment list and weight-and-balance data, updated whenever equipment changes alter the empty weight or center of gravity.

ARROW is sometimes taught alongside a companion memory aid, AV1ATES (or AVIATES), which covers the inspections and checks that keep the aircraft airworthy rather than the documents carried aboard: Airworthiness directives complied with, Annual inspection, 100-hour inspection where required, Altimeter and pitot-static check, Transponder check, ELT battery, and Static system. The two are adjacent but distinct — ARROW is the paperwork that must be present, while AV1ATES is the recurring inspection status that makes the airworthiness certificate valid. Under EASA the equivalent documents differ in name and detail — the Certificate of Airworthiness, an Airworthiness Review Certificate, the aircraft registration, the flight manual, and the noise certificate — so ARROW is specifically a US framework, not an international one.

For a flight school or flying club, ARROW is both a checkride item every student must know and a fleet-administration reality the operator lives with daily. A missing or expired document can ground an aircraft or turn an otherwise routine flight into a regulatory violation, so the operator needs to know at all times that each aircraft's registration is current, its airworthiness certificate is displayed, its POH and weight-and-balance data are aboard and up to date, and — for any aircraft that crosses a border — that the FCC radio station license is present. Because registration now runs on a seven-year cycle rather than three, the renewal is easy to forget, which makes a tracked expiry date valuable.

On the instruction side, ARROW is where a student learns the difference between the documents carried aboard and the airworthiness status behind them. A good ground brief connects ARROW to AV1ATES, to the aircraft logbooks that record inspections and airworthiness-directive compliance, and to the preflight habit of confirming the required documents are actually present before flight. A school that treats document currency as a managed fleet process — not something rediscovered during a ramp check — protects both its dispatch reliability and its regulatory standing.

Aviatize's Digital Data & Records module gives a school a central place to hold each aircraft's registration, airworthiness certificate, POH, and weight-and-balance data, with the registration expiry tracked so the seven-year renewal is flagged before it lapses rather than discovered on the ramp. Maintenance Control ties the documents to the inspection and airworthiness-directive status behind them, so the paperwork carried aboard and the airworthiness that validates it are managed together.

Because a document gap can ground an aircraft, Aviatize's Smart Planning & Booking reflects an aircraft's availability, so a lapsed registration or an out-of-date record surfaces before a lesson is scheduled on an aircraft that should not be dispatched.