Synthetic Flight Instructor (SFI)

The SFI authorization is governed by FCL.905.SFI (privileges), FCL.915.SFI (prerequisites), FCL.930.SFI (course requirements), and FCL.940.SFI (validity and revalidation), all within Commission Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011 as amended. The SFI(A) — SFI for aeroplanes — is the most common form; SFI(H) exists for helicopter synthetic flight instruction. The SFI's defining characteristic is that the authorization is device-specific and type-specific: an SFI authorized to instruct in an Airbus A320 Full Flight Simulator (FFS) may not use that authorization to instruct in a Boeing B737 FFS, and may not conduct any flight training in the actual aircraft regardless of whether a type rating is held separately.

The prerequisites for SFI(A) initial issue under FCL.915.SFI are structured to be accessible to experienced multi-crew pilots who have not accumulated the flight instruction hours needed for TRI qualification. The applicant must: hold or have held a CPL(A) or ATPL(A), have completed at least 1,500 hours of flight time as a pilot of multi-pilot aeroplanes (for SFI(MPA)) or have completed at least 500 hours of flight time including command time on the relevant aircraft type (for SFI(SPA complex high-performance)), and have completed the SFI course. The SFI course under FCL.930.SFI requires at least 25 hours of theoretical knowledge instruction covering instructional techniques and at least 5 hours of flight instruction in the relevant FFS under assessment by a TRE; the course concludes with a competence assessment before a TRE. Applicants who have not previously held any flight instructor certificate (FI, IRI, CRI, or TRI) must additionally complete the 20-hour instructional techniques element stipulated in FCL.930.FI(b) before the SFI course.

The operational distinction between the SFI and the Type Rating Instructor (TRI) is fundamental to type rating course delivery. A TRI(MPA) must hold the type rating for the relevant aircraft and may conduct both the simulator elements and the aircraft elements (base training) of a type rating course. An SFI may only conduct simulator training — the base training component (circuits and landings in the actual aircraft) must be conducted by a qualified TRI. For type rating courses where the competent authority has approved a zero-flight-time (ZFT) pathway — available when the Level D FFS has been demonstrated to allow the skill test to be conducted entirely in the simulator — the SFI can deliver the complete course training element, with the TRE conducting the final skill test in the FFS. ZFT approvals are common for glass-cockpit narrowbody jets (A320 family, B737 family) where Level D FFS fidelity has been established across decades.

For instrument rating training in FSTDs, FCL.905.SFI explicitly permits the SFI to conduct all simulator elements of an IR course in an approved FNPT II, FTD Level 5 or higher, or FFS — including the instrument approach procedures, holding, and IFR departure training. This makes the SFI authorization a critical enabler for ATO IFR training programmes that use lower-cost FTDs rather than full type-specific FFS for IR training phases.

SFI certificate validity is 3 years under FCL.940.SFI. Revalidation within the validity window requires: a minimum of 3 sessions of flight instruction in the relevant FFS during the validity period (to maintain instructional currency), plus attendance at a standardization seminar conducted by the ATO. Renewal after expiry requires re-assessment by a TRE. The SFI who allows their certificate to expire must complete the renewal process before resuming simulator instruction; any instruction delivered after expiry does not count toward the student's type rating course and must be repeated, creating the same ORA.ATO.150 course completion validity risk that applies to expired TRI authorization.

The FAA system has no directly equivalent standalone credential. Under 14 CFR §142.55, a Part 142 training center must use instructors who hold the aircraft type rating (or an equivalent simulator-specific authorization under the training center's approved training programme) for the aircraft category being simulated. Simulator instructor qualifications at FAA Part 142 centers are maintained through the center's own Training Program Document (TPD) and approved by the FAA's Aviation Safety Inspector (ASI) assigned to the center — not through a separately issued pilot license endorsement.

SFI workforce planning is a distinct challenge from TRI workforce planning. Because the SFI does not need to hold the type rating, the recruitment pool is technically broader — a retired airline pilot with 10,000 hours on type who has surrendered their type rating can still hold and exercise an SFI authorization. In practice, however, SFI candidates who are current airline pilots maintaining line flying are preferred by ATOs because their operational currency directly improves the quality of simulator instruction. An SFI who has not flown the line in two years tends to deliver procedurally accurate but operationally stale instruction — knowing the checklist items without the contextual feel of how things go wrong on actual revenue operations.

SFI validity tracking creates a specific administrative risk for multi-type ATOs. An ATO running A320, B737, and ATR72 type rating programs maintains an SFI roster for each type; an SFI who holds all three authorizations has three separate expiry dates, three separate standardization seminar requirements, and three sets of minimum-session currency requirements. Manual tracking of these across a roster of 15–30 SFIs is error-prone. Authority audit findings relating to expired instructor authorizations consistently rank among the top five findings in EASA ORA.ATO audits, and SFI expiry — unlike TRI expiry, which is more visible because it is tied to an active airline type rating — can drift unnoticed in paper-based tracking systems.

Aviatize's compliance and auditing module manages the SFI authorization register with full per-type granularity: each SFI's certificate, associated type authorizations, individual expiry dates, standardization seminar attendance records, and session currency counts are tracked as separate data points rather than a single certificate record. Automated alerts — issued to the SFI, the Chief Instructor, and the Compliance Manager — fire at 90, 60, and 30 days before each type authorization's expiry. Because an SFI may hold authorizations for multiple types with different expiry dates, the alert engine tracks each type authorization independently rather than treating the SFI certificate as a monolithic record. When an authorization expires, the scheduling engine in the smart planning and booking module automatically blocks that SFI from assignment to simulator sessions on the relevant type, preventing expired-instructor violations at the booking stage.

For ATO capacity planning, the training management module models SFI availability per type against the approved simulator schedule. When SFI coverage for a specific type drops below the minimum required to sustain the booked training intake — either because of expiry, illness, or resignation — the system surfaces the gap in the KPI reporting and dashboards module as a capacity risk item with the earliest date at which training throughput will be constrained. This gives the Head of Training a forward-looking view of SFI workforce risk rather than a retrospective incident report, enabling proactive recruitment and revalidation scheduling well before simulator slots are lost.