Instrument Written Exam
Sixty questions, two hours on the clock, seventy to pass, and a result that stays usable for twenty-four calendar months. The subject list is not a mystery either — it is printed in 14 CFR 61.65(b), and this page walks all seven of them.
How Many Questions Are On The Instrument Written Test?
Sixty, with 2.0 hours allotted and a minimum passing score of 70. The test code is IRA, for Instrument Rating Airplane, and those four figures come from the FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix dated 22 October 2025, which is the version currently published at faa.gov and the only version worth quoting.
That last clause is not pedantry. Older copies of the matrix are still sitting on the public internet, some of them years out of date, and they are the reason you will find pages quoting different question counts and different clock times for this exam. If a figure you read anywhere — including here — disagrees with the current matrix, the current matrix wins.
The minimum age listed against IRA is 15, which surprises people who assume the written comes late. It does not have to. 14 CFR 61.65(a)(4) only asks for an instructor endorsement first, and many students sit the written well before they finish the flying.
Is Written Test Preparation Inside The Program Price?
The preparation is. The test fee is not, because a testing centre charges it and we neither set it nor collect it.
Instrument Rating Program
Ground work across all seven knowledge areas at 14 CFR 61.65(b), plus the endorsement that lets you sit the test.
- ✓Ground training on the 61.65(b) subjects
- ✓The 61.65(a)(4) endorsement for the written
- ✓The flying, the long cross-country and the checkride prep
- ✓Fixed the day you enroll
Redbird MCX Session
Chart work and approach procedure make far more sense once you have flown them, even in a machine on the ground.
- ✓Full-motion and fully enclosed
- ✓Approach plates stop being abstract
- ✓Never scrubbed by weather
Assessment Flight
An hour of dual instruction. Useful before you commit to a written test date as well as before you enroll.
- ✓Loggable toward the certificate you hold
- ✓Credited whole against a program enrolled within a day
- ✓Ask for time under a view-limiting device
Which Program Carries The Ground Work For Which Written?
A career route involves more than one knowledge test. Each program below carries the ground training for the written that belongs to it, and the endorsement that lets you sit it.
Comprehensive Private Pilot
Carries the ground work for the private pilot airplane written, which the FAA matrix also lists at 60 questions and 2.0 hours.
- ✓60 hours logged, 55 of them single-engine
- ✓10 hours of ground school
- ✓Books and training materials included
Instrument Rating
Carries the ground work for the IRA written across all seven subject areas at 14 CFR 61.65(b).
- ✓Ground training on the 61.65(b) subjects
- ✓The endorsement required at 61.65(a)(4)
- ✓The flying, the long cross-country and checkride prep
Airline Career Track
Every certificate and rating in one sequence, with the ground work for each written inside the route.
- ✓Private, instrument, commercial, multi, instructor
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓No repricing at a stage boundary
How Long Is The Instrument Written Valid?
Twenty-four calendar months, and the way it is counted matters. Under 14 CFR 61.39(a)(1)(i) the written has to have been passed inside the 24 calendar months before the month the practical test is finished. Calendar months, not days — a pass in January is good through the end of January two years later.
This is the rule that decides whether sitting the written early is clever or expensive. Early is clever when the flying is going to be concentrated, because the ground knowledge is fresh when the oral exam arrives. Early becomes expensive when training stretches across two winters and an examiner backlog, because then the written expires and you sit it again.
Our position: take it once the ground work is genuinely done, and only after you can see a realistic finish date. The written is not the bottleneck in this rating and treating it as a race produces a score you then have to re-earn.
How Do You Actually Take The Instrument Written Test?
Five steps. Only one of them involves answering a question.
Do The Ground Training
14 CFR 61.65(a)(3) accepts either logged ground training from an authorized instructor or a completed home-study course, covering the seven knowledge areas in paragraph (b). Both routes are legal. Only one of them tells you when your understanding of holding entries is wrong.
Get The Endorsement
At 14 CFR 61.65(a)(4) an authorized instructor has to endorse your logbook or training record to confirm you are ready for the knowledge test. Testing centres ask to see it. Turning up without it costs you the appointment.
Book A Testing Centre
The written is administered by an FAA-approved testing provider rather than by a flight school, and the centre sets and collects the fee. Bring photographic identification and your endorsement. We publish no figure for the fee because we neither set nor receive it.
Answer Sixty Questions In Two Hours
Multiple choice, computer-delivered, with figures and a supplement book of charts and tables. Two hours for sixty questions is two minutes each, which is generous for recall questions and tight for the chart work, so triage rather than working in order.
Keep The Result Where You Can Find It
The airman knowledge test report is required at the practical test, and the examiner will look at the subject codes for anything you got wrong. Expect the oral exam to visit them. That is not a punishment; it is the system doing exactly what it was designed to do.
What Subjects Are On The Instrument Written Exam?
The same seven that 14 CFR 61.65(b) requires the ground training to cover, which is why the written and the oral feel like the same exam twice. Regulations that apply to flight under instrument flight rules. The parts of the Aeronautical Information Manual that apply to the same. The air traffic control system and its instrument procedures.
Then the heavier half: navigation and approaches flown by use of navigation systems, and the use of en route and instrument approach procedure charts. Between them these two subjects account for most of the chart work in the supplement book and most of the questions people fail on.
Sixth, weather — not just reading reports and forecasts, but forecasting trends from them and from what you can see for yourself. Seventh, the safe and efficient operation of an aircraft under instrument flight rules. The seventh is deliberately broad, and it is where a question goes when it does not fit anywhere else.
Which Parts Of The Written Catch People Out?
Six recurring problems. None of them is intelligence and all six are fixable in a fortnight.
Chart Supplement Navigation
Finding the right figure in the supplement book under time pressure. Practise with the book, not with a screenshot of the question.
Holding Entries
The classic. The exam wants a repeatable method rather than an instinct, and it rewards drawing it out on the scratch paper you are given.
Weather Products
14 CFR 61.65(b)(6) asks for trend forecasting, not recitation. Questions phrase themselves as decisions rather than definitions.
Approach Minimums And Categories
Reading a plate correctly is a skill with a lot of small rules attached, and the exam tests the small rules.
Navigation System Behaviour
What each system does when it loses its signal, and what the panel shows you when it happens.
Regulations You Never Use Visually
Alternate requirements, fuel reserves under instrument flight rules, and equipment rules that a visual pilot has genuinely never needed.
How Should You Study For The IRA Written?
Three habits and one warning. The warning matters more than the habits.
Study The Subject, Then Test Yourself
In that order, and it is worth saying because the popular order is the reverse. Working question banks first produces a score; working the subject first produces a pilot who then scores. The oral exam at the practical test is conducted by a human being who can tell the difference in about four minutes.
- Work through all seven 61.65(b) areas before testing yourself
- Use the real chart supplement, not screenshots
- Write down every question you get right for the wrong reason
Fly The Thing You Are Studying
Approach plates make a different kind of sense after you have flown one, even in a machine on the ground. This is the strongest single argument for a Redbird MCX session at $189 during the ground phase rather than after it: the chart stops being a diagram and starts being a set of instructions.
It is also the least painful way to discover that you have been reading a minimums box wrong for a fortnight.
Aim Well Above Seventy
Seventy is a pass and it is also a list of subject codes handed to your examiner. Every question you missed becomes a topic in the oral exam, so the score is not only a threshold, it is an agenda. Students who sit the test at a genuine eighty-five spend a noticeably shorter morning on the oral.
- 70 is the minimum passing score, per the FAA testing matrix
- Missed subject codes appear on the test report
- The examiner is entitled to visit every one of them
The Warning: Check The Date On Your Source
The single most common factual error about this exam comes from out-of-date documents that are still reachable online. Question counts and clock times do change between revisions of the FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix. Before you rely on any figure, including the ones on this page, look at the version date on the document you are reading. The current one at the time of writing is dated 22 October 2025.
Should You Take The Written Before Or During Flight Training?
Both work. The 24-calendar-month clock at 14 CFR 61.39(a)(1)(i) decides which suits you, and that turns on your diary rather than on how quick you are.
Before The Flying Starts
Ground work done, test sat, then a clean run at the airplane with the theory already behind you.
Best fora student who is about to train concentrated, three or four flights a week
- Ground Knowledge At The OralFresh if you finish quickly
- Risk Of ExpiryReal if training stretches
- Cognitive Load In The AirplaneLower
- Valid For24 calendar months
Once The Ground Work Is Done
Sat when the approach and chart material has been flown as well as read, with a finish date in sight.
Best formost people, and anyone training around a job
- Ground Knowledge At The OralFresh
- Risk Of ExpiryLow
- Cognitive Load In The AirplaneModerate
- Valid For24 calendar months
The IRA Test At A Glance
| What | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Test Code | IRA | FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix, 22 October 2025 |
| Questions | 60 | FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix, 22 October 2025 |
| Time Allotted | 2.0 hours | FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix, 22 October 2025 |
| Minimum Passing Score | 70 | FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix, 22 October 2025 |
| Minimum Age | 15 | FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix, 22 October 2025 |
| Validity Before The Practical Test | 24 calendar months | 14 CFR 61.39(a)(1)(i) |
| Subject Matter | Seven knowledge areas | 14 CFR 61.65(b) |
What Happens If You Fail The Instrument Written?
You retake it, and 14 CFR 61.49(a) sets the condition: additional training from an authorized instructor who has determined that you are prepared to pass, plus an endorsement from that instructor saying so. The regulation imposes no waiting period of its own, though the testing provider will have its own scheduling rules.
Nothing about a failed written follows you into a certificate. It is not on your airman certificate, it does not appear to an employer, and it does not change what the practical test asks of you. What it does do is tell your instructor exactly which of the seven subject areas the training missed, which is genuinely useful information delivered in an unpleasant way.
Say the quiet part: most failures are preparation failures, and most preparation failures are question-bank failures. Someone who has memorised answers passes a rehearsal and fails a variation. Someone who understands the subject does the opposite.
Where Do These Test Figures Come From?
Five things you can verify yourself, without asking us and without taking anything on trust.
Questions, From The Current FAA Matrix
The FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix dated 22 October 2025 lists IRA, Instrument Rating Airplane, at 60 questions with 2.0 hours allotted, a minimum passing score of 70 and a minimum age of 15.
faa.gov/training_testing/testing/testing_matrixIndependent Sources Behind That Row
The figure was cross-checked against a second host before publication rather than taken from a single document, because superseded copies of this matrix are still in public circulation.
Cross-checked before publicationKnowledge Areas, Named Rather Than Summarised
This page lists all seven areas from 14 CFR 61.65(b) instead of describing them loosely, so you can compare them against the section yourself.
14 CFR 61.65(b)Calendar Months Of Validity
14 CFR 61.39(a)(1)(i) requires the knowledge test to have been passed inside the 24-calendar-month period before the month you complete the practical test.
14 CFR 61.39(a)(1)(i)Test Fees We Set Or Receive
None. The knowledge test is charged by the testing centre that administers it, and this site publishes no figure for it.
Stated on this pageWhat Does The Written Score Do At The Checkride?
It becomes the opening agenda. You present the airman knowledge test report at the practical test, and the subject codes for every question you answered wrongly are printed on it. The examiner is entitled to open the oral exam there, and many do, because it is the only piece of objective evidence about your knowledge that exists before you speak.
The rest of the oral follows the Instrument Rating — Airplane Airman Certification Standards, FAA-S-ACS-8C, across the same eight areas of operation 14 CFR 61.65(c) lists. Expect the regulations governing the flight you planned, the charts for the approaches you chose, the alternate you filed and the reason for it, and the equipment actually installed in the airplane you brought.
There is a reason to care about a score you have technically already passed. Seventy gets you into the room with eighteen subject codes attached; a genuine high score gets you into the same room with three.
The Limits Of This Page
We publish no pass rate for this test or any other, and no graduate count. The business is new, any figure would come from a sample too small to be meaningful, and a number that cannot be audited is worse than none. This is a part 61 operation at Van Nuys Airport, with no cadet program, no pathway agreement and no hiring relationship with any airline.
We do not sell a question bank, we are not an approved knowledge testing centre, and we take no fee from the one you use. What is inside the program price is ground training on the seven subject areas and the endorsement that lets you sit the test.
One correction we would rather make in public than in private. An earlier draft of this cluster carried the wrong figures for this exam because they were read off a superseded copy of the FAA testing matrix that is still hosted online. The figures above come from the current versioned matrix and were cross-checked against a second host before publishing. If they ever disagree with the FAA, believe the FAA.
Questions About The Instrument Written Exam
Sixty. The FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix dated 22 October 2025 lists the Instrument Rating Airplane test, code IRA, at 60 questions with 2.0 hours allotted and a minimum passing score of 70. The listed minimum age is 15.
Seventy. That is 42 correct answers out of 60. Aim considerably higher than that, because every question you miss comes back as a subject code printed on the airman knowledge test report, and the examiner is entitled to open the oral exam on exactly those.
Two hours, listed as 2.0 in the FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix. Sixty questions in 120 minutes averages two minutes each, which is comfortable for recall questions and tight for the ones that send you into the chart supplement, so answer the quick ones first.
Twenty-four calendar months, counted the way 14 CFR 61.39(a)(1)(i) counts them: the written must have been passed inside the 24 calendar months before the month you finish your practical test. Let it lapse before the checkride and you sit the exam again.
The seven knowledge areas in 14 CFR 61.65(b): IFR regulations, the relevant parts of the Aeronautical Information Manual, the air traffic control system and its procedures, navigation and approaches using navigation systems, en route and approach procedure charts, aviation weather reports and forecasts including trend forecasting, and the safe and efficient operation of aircraft under instrument flight rules.
Yes. At 14 CFR 61.65(a)(4) an authorized instructor must endorse your logbook or training record to confirm you are ready to sit the knowledge test, and testing centres check for it before they seat you.
Yes, and plenty of people do. The listed minimum age for the IRA test is 15 and nothing requires flight training to be underway. The practical constraint is the 24-calendar-month validity window at 14 CFR 61.39(a)(1)(i): sit it too early and it can expire before your practical test.
You retake it. 14 CFR 61.49(a) requires additional training from an authorized instructor who has determined that you are prepared to pass, together with an endorsement from that instructor. The regulation itself sets no waiting period, though the testing provider may have scheduling rules of its own.
No. The knowledge test is administered and charged for by an FAA-approved testing centre, not by us, and this site publishes no figure for the fee because it is not ours to set. Ground training across the seven subject areas and the endorsement to sit the test are inside the $11,700 program price.
Different rather than harder. The private test is broad and shallow; the instrument test is narrow and deep, with far more chart interpretation and far less general airmanship. Both are listed at 60 questions and 2.0 hours in the FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix, and both require 70 to pass.
How These Figures Were Verified
Airline Pilot Flight School does not administer the knowledge test, does not profit from it, and will tell you plainly when you are ready to sit it.
The question count, the time allowed, the passing score and the minimum age for test code IRA were read from the FAA Airman Knowledge Testing Matrix published at faa.gov/training_testing/testing/testing_matrix, version dated 22 October 2025, and were then cross-checked against a second independent host before this page was published.
Superseded copies of that matrix remain publicly reachable and carry different figures. Any page quoting a different question count or a different clock time for this exam is either reading an old file or copying someone who did. Check the version date on whatever document you are relying on, including this one.
The regulatory references on this page — 14 CFR 61.65(a), 61.65(b), 61.39(a)(1)(i) and 61.49(a) — were read against the current eCFR text and cross-read at the Cornell Legal Information Institute before publication. This site is a part 61 flight training operation and is not an FAA knowledge testing centre.
The Written Is Easier After You Have Flown An Approach
Book an assessment flight and ask your instructor to fly an approach with you, then read the plate for it afterwards. Almost every student who does this in that order says the chart work on the written stopped being abstract in a single afternoon. Enroll within a day and the fee comes off the program price.
Keep Reading
Fly The Aeroplane Once, Then Decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →