TSA Flight Training Approval Under 49 CFR Part 1552
If you are not a United States citizen or national, 49 CFR part 1552 requires a security threat assessment and a Determination of Eligibility from TSA before flight training begins. If you are, the requirement lands on the school instead: it must establish your status before training starts. This page sets out both sides.
Do You Need TSA Approval To Take Flight Training?
If you are a United States citizen or national, no approval is applied for by you, though the school must examine your documentation and establish that status before training begins. If you are not, you are a candidate under 49 CFR part 1552 and you need a security threat assessment and a Determination of Eligibility from TSA before flight training starts.
The obligation is written onto the flight training provider rather than onto you, which is worth understanding because it explains why a school asks for documents at enrolment rather than at some later point. Under 49 CFR 1552.7 no provider may give flight training, or access to flight training equipment, to any individual before establishing that the person is a United States citizen, a United States national, a Department of Defense endorsee, or a candidate holding a valid determination.
For most readers of this site that is the whole story: bring documentation once, the school records that it examined it, and nothing further happens. The rule is not a background check on a citizen and it is not an approval a citizen applies for.
For a candidate it is real administration with a real timeline, and it is best started early. The rule defines a candidate as an alien applying for flight training or recurrent training from a flight training provider, and it defines flight training broadly enough to reach simulator instruction as well as instruction in an aircraft.
None of it touches the FAA medical certificate. The two processes run on entirely separate tracks, are administered by different agencies, and neither waits for the other. Start both early and run them in parallel, because both have timelines that leave your control the moment they begin.
Who Needs What?
Three categories appear in the rule and they are treated very differently. Find yourself here before you start planning a timeline, because only one of the three involves an application.
United States Citizen Or National
No application, no fee and no waiting. The school examines your government-issued documentation, records that it did so, and training can begin. This is a duty on the provider rather than a process you go through.
- ApplicationNone
- FeeNone
- What You BringGovernment-issued documentation
- Rule49 CFR 1552.7
Department Of Defense Endorsee
A separate route written into the same section. The provider confirms through the FTSP Portal that your government-issued photo identification matches the information carried in the endorsement.
- ApplicationVia the endorsement
- Verified ThroughThe FTSP Portal
- What You BringPhoto identification
- Rule49 CFR 1552.7
Candidate
An alien applying for flight training or recurrent training. A security threat assessment and a Determination of Eligibility from TSA are required before flight training begins, and the determination runs five years from the date it was issued.
- ApplicationThrough the FTSP Portal
- FeeThe applicable fee under 1552.39
- Processing30 days for a complete application
- Valid ForFive years from issue
- Rule49 CFR 1552.31
Why Does The Rule Sit On The School Rather Than On You?
Because the thing being regulated is the provision of flight training, not the taking of it. 49 CFR 1552.7 prohibits a provider from giving training, or access to training equipment, before it has established which of the four categories you fall into. The provider is the party that can be penalised, which is why the document request arrives at enrolment and is not negotiable.
It also explains the shape of the check. For a citizen or a national the provider examines documentation directly. For a Department of Defense endorsee and for a candidate the provider confirms status through the FTSP Portal rather than by looking at a piece of paper you hand over, because the portal is the system of record and a printout is not.
The duty continues after training starts. Where TSA issues a Determination of Ineligibility, or notifies the provider that an individual poses a security threat, the provider has to stop training immediately. That is a real and immediate obligation rather than a slow administrative one, and it is worth knowing exists.
And the rule reaches the staff as well as the students. 49 CFR 1552.9 requires a designated Security Coordinator who is the primary point of contact for TSA. 49 CFR 1552.13 requires that every employee with direct contact with flight students takes initial security awareness training within sixty days of being hired, with refresher training at least every two years. 49 CFR 1552.15 sets out the records behind all of it.
What Does A Candidate Actually Have To Do?
Submit a security threat assessment to TSA through the FTSP Portal, provide biographic and biometric information and identity verification documents, pay the applicable fee, and wait for a Determination of Eligibility. Flight training does not begin until that determination exists.
What Has To Be Submitted
49 CFR 1552.31 requires a candidate to submit biographic and biometric information that TSA determines is necessary for conducting the assessment, identity verification documents, and the applicable security threat assessment fee identified in 49 CFR 1552.39. The submission runs through the FTSP Portal.
What the portal asks for in practice can change, so the portal itself is the authority on the current list rather than any web page, including this one. 49 CFR 1552.7 makes the same point about acceptable identification documents: the rule directs providers to a list maintained on the portal rather than printing one in the regulation.
- Biographic and biometric information
- Identity verification documents
- The applicable fee under 49 CFR 1552.39
- Submitted through the FTSP Portal
What TSA Checks
49 CFR 1552.31 describes an assessment that confirms the candidate's identity, checks relevant databases to determine whether the individual may pose a security threat, includes an immigration check, and includes a fingerprint-based criminal history records check against the disqualifying offences that 49 CFR 1544.229 lists.
TSA states that it will process a complete application within thirty days. Everything hangs on the word complete: an application missing a document is not one, and the clock people plan around is the one that starts when the submission is whole.
- Confirmation of identity
- Checks against relevant databases
- An immigration check
- A fingerprint-based criminal history records check
The Determination, And How Long It Lasts
Five years from the date it was issued, under 49 CFR 1552.31, with earlier expiry in defined circumstances — including where the candidate's authorisation to remain in the United States ends sooner, in which case the determination expires on that same date. A candidate whose authorisation is extended may extend the determination up to the same five-year total by submitting updated documentation.
No candidate may engage in flight training after their determination has expired. That five-year window is longer than most people expect, and it matters for anyone who trains, pauses and returns: within the window there is not necessarily a fresh application to make. Check the current position on the portal rather than assuming it either way.
If The Answer Is No
A Determination of Ineligibility made on the basis of a complete and accurate record is final. Where it rested on a record the candidate believes is wrong, 49 CFR 1552.31 allows the record to be corrected by submitting the missing or corrected documents, together with anything further TSA asks for, within 180 days of the initial determination.
This school has no part in that process and no visibility into it. What we can do is confirm through the portal that a valid determination exists, which is precisely what the rule requires of us and precisely the limit of it.
In What Order Should A Candidate Do This?
Five steps, and the first one is the one people leave too late. Nothing in this sequence is difficult; the whole difficulty is that parts of it are outside your control once they start.
Decide On A School First
The application is made in connection with a flight training provider, so the school comes before the submission rather than after it. Ask any school you are considering how it verifies status and how quickly it can confirm a determination through the portal.
Start The Security Threat Assessment
Through the FTSP Portal, with biographic and biometric information, identity verification documents and the applicable fee. Submit a complete application: TSA's thirty-day processing statement applies to complete applications, and an incomplete one restarts your own clock rather than TSA's.
Book The FAA Medical In Parallel
Two agencies, two processes, no dependency between them. There is no reason to wait for one before beginning the other, and running them together removes weeks from the total. The medical is also the step most likely to change your plan, so early is better.
Enroll And Provide Documents
Identity documentation goes to the school regardless of your category, because under 49 CFR 1552.7 the provider has to establish where you stand before any training begins. Where you are a candidate, the school also confirms your determination through the portal.
Begin Flight Training
Once the determination exists and the school has confirmed it. Not before — the rule bars training and access to training equipment until then, and no school can waive that or accelerate it, whatever the schedule pressure is.
How Should You Sequence This Against Everything Else?
In parallel with the medical, and both before any deposit. Neither process waits for the other, neither has any bearing on the other, and both have timelines that leave your control once they start. The only sequencing that matters is that both begin early.
For a candidate the practical advice is to open the security threat assessment as soon as you have decided on a school, because the determination has to exist before flight training does. Nothing about the process is unusual and nothing about it is fast enough to leave until the week before you want to start.
For a United States citizen or national there is nothing to begin. Bring documentation to enrolment and the step takes minutes. It is worth knowing the rule exists mainly so that a request for documents reads as a legal duty rather than as a school being awkward.
One clarification, because it causes real confusion. Part 1552 is a security requirement and it is not an immigration route. It grants, extends and alters no immigration status whatsoever, and it is not a substitute for whatever visa position applies to you. Where your plan depends on a visa category requiring a certificated school, this part 61 provider does not satisfy that, and you should establish it before anything else.
What Can This School Do, And What Can It Not?
Six statements, three of each. A school that is vague about the second three is describing capabilities it does not have, and this is the part of the process where that costs a student real time.
Verify Your Status Before Training
Required of every provider by 49 CFR 1552.7, and done once at enrolment rather than repeatedly. For a citizen or national it is an examination of your documentation.
Confirm A Determination Through The Portal
Where you are a candidate or a Department of Defense endorsee, the confirmation is made through the FTSP Portal rather than from a document handed across a desk.
Keep The Records The Rule Requires
49 CFR 1552.15 sets the recordkeeping obligations, including retention for at least five years after a record expires or falls out of use, and 49 CFR 1552.9 requires a designated Security Coordinator.
Expedite A TSA Determination
No. Nor can any other flight school. There is no relationship with TSA that shortens a queue, and any operator implying there is has described something that does not exist.
See Inside Your Application
No. We can confirm that a valid determination exists; we cannot see where an application sits, why it is taking time, or what it contains.
Advise On Immigration
No, and nothing on this page is immigration advice. Part 1552 is a security requirement attached to flight training and it settles nothing about your right to be in the country.
What Does The Training Itself Cost?
The published program figures, unchanged by any of this. The TSA fee is paid to TSA rather than to us, we neither set nor bill it, and no figure for it appears anywhere on this site.
Zero To Airline
Every phase from the first logged hour to a flight instructor rating, priced once and fixed at the point of enrolment.
- ✓Five phases under a single figure
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓No repricing at a phase boundary
- ✓Part 61 from start to finish
Private Pilot — Comprehensive
Sixty hours in the logbook: fifty-five airborne, five in the simulator, fifty flown dual, plus ten hours of ground instruction.
- ✓60 hours logged
- ✓5 Redbird MCX sessions
- ✓10 hours of ground instruction
- ✓Books and materials included
Instrument Rating
Phase two of the career route, and the rating that changes how you fly more than any other single step.
- ✓40 hours of instrument time under 61.65(d)
- ✓50 hours cross-country as the pilot flying
- ✓An IFR cross-country of 250 nautical miles
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Multi-Engine Add-On
The class rating that opens twin-engine flying, and later the ability to instruct in one.
- ✓No hour floor in 14 CFR 61.63(c)
- ✓An endorsement and a practical test
- ✓Flown in the Piper Seminole
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
What Can You Verify About How This Is Handled?
The rule itself is public and short enough to read in an evening, which beats any assurance a school could give you. The five items below are about the school rather than the regulation.
Airframe Types On The Ramp, Owned Rather Than Brokered
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. The airplanes belong to the operation, so the maintenance calendar is ours and not a lessor's.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors Working Here
Each carries a commercial certificate or an ATP beneath, an instructor certificate above it, and a medical in date. You are matched with one of them, and you may ask for another if the fit is wrong.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23 · 61.195Training-Capable Days Measured Across Twelve Months
Counted from NOAA ASOS observations for the year ending 1 August 2026, admitting a day only where the ceiling held at 3,000 feet with five statute miles of visibility across four qualifying daylight hours.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetA Session In The Full-Motion Simulator
Two sessions sit inside Standard and Premium, five inside Comprehensive, and weather never takes one away.
Published, not quoted on requestProgram Prices Withheld Until You Enquire
None. Every course figure is printed on the site, nothing is offered as a spread, and the price you sign for is the price you read.
Stated rather than impliedWhat About Recurrent Training And Returning Students?
The rule reaches recurrent training as well as initial training: the definition of a candidate covers an alien applying for either. So a pilot returning for a flight review, an added rating or a currency course is inside part 1552 in the same way a first-time student is, and the provider has the same duty to establish status before anything begins.
The five-year term of a Determination of Eligibility is what makes this manageable. A candidate who trains, pauses and comes back inside that window may still hold a valid determination, and in that case the school confirms it through the portal and training resumes. Outside the window there is no determination to confirm and no training until a new one exists.
Where the determination is tied to an authorisation to remain in the United States that expires sooner, it expires with it. Extending the authorisation and submitting updated documentation can extend the determination up to the same five-year total, which is worth knowing before a plan is built around a return date.
Nothing about any of this is checked lesson by lesson. It is established once, before training begins, and confirmed again if you return after a gap. What you should not do is assume from a previous determination that you are clear — check its date, and check the portal, before booking the aircraft.
Questions About The TSA Process
No approval is applied for by the citizen. The obligation sits on the school: under 49 CFR 1552.7 no flight training provider may give training or access to training equipment before establishing that the person is a United States citizen, a national, a Department of Defense endorsee, or a candidate with a valid determination. In practice that means showing documentation once.
An alien who applies for flight training or recurrent training from a flight training provider. A candidate must complete a security threat assessment and receive a Determination of Eligibility from TSA before flight training begins, under 49 CFR 1552.31.
Five years from the date it was issued, under 49 CFR 1552.31, subject to earlier expiry in defined circumstances — including where the candidate's authorisation to remain in the United States ends sooner, in which case it expires on that date. No candidate may engage in flight training once the determination has expired.
TSA states that it will process complete security threat assessment applications within thirty days. An application missing a document is not a complete one, so the practical advice is to submit everything at once rather than in instalments, and to allow for the possibility of being asked for more.
Biographic and biometric information that TSA determines is necessary for the assessment, identity verification documents, and the applicable fee identified in 49 CFR 1552.39, all through the FTSP Portal. The portal is the authority on the current list rather than any web page, because the rule directs providers there instead of printing one.
Under 49 CFR 1552.31 it confirms the candidate's identity, checks relevant databases for indications that the individual may pose a security threat, includes an immigration check, and includes a fingerprint-based criminal history records check against the disqualifying offences listed in 49 CFR 1544.229.
No. A candidate must complete the security threat assessment and receive the determination before flight training begins, and a provider must confirm through the portal that a valid determination exists before giving any training or any access to training equipment.
There is an applicable security threat assessment fee, addressed at 49 CFR 1552.39, and it is paid to TSA rather than to this school. No figure for it appears anywhere on this site, because we neither set it nor bill it, and the same is true of examiner fees and your medical examination.
Not at all. They are separate processes run by different agencies on entirely separate tracks, and neither one waits for the other. Start both early and in parallel, because both have timelines that leave your control once they begin.
No. Part 1552 is a security requirement attached to flight training and it grants, extends or alters no immigration status whatsoever. It is not a substitute for whatever visa position applies to you, and this page is not immigration advice.
Yes. 49 CFR 1552.13 requires each flight training provider employee with direct contact with flight students to receive initial security awareness training within sixty days of being hired, with refresher training at least every two years. 49 CFR 1552.9 requires a Security Coordinator and 49 CFR 1552.15 sets out the recordkeeping.
A Determination of Ineligibility made on a complete and accurate record is final. Where it rested on a record the candidate believes is wrong, 49 CFR 1552.31 allows the record to be corrected by submitting the missing or corrected documents within 180 days of the initial determination. This school has no part in that process.
No, and nor can any other flight school. There is no relationship with TSA here, no ability to expedite anything and no visibility into where an application sits. What we can do is confirm through the FTSP Portal that a determination exists and is valid, which is what the rule requires of us.
The rule defines flight training broadly enough to reach instruction in an aircraft simulator as well as in an aircraft, so the sensible assumption is yes. The practical effect is that a candidate cannot start in the Redbird ahead of a determination either, which occasionally surprises people planning around weather.
The Limits Of What This Page Can Tell You
This page summarises 49 CFR part 1552 as it currently reads, and it names the section behind each statement so that you can read the rule rather than take our word for it. The FTSP Portal is the authority on what a candidate must submit and which identification documents are acceptable, because the rule itself directs providers there rather than printing a list.
Nothing here is immigration advice, no fee is quoted, and this school cannot expedite, influence or see inside any TSA determination. Regulations move; check the current text before relying on any figure on this page.
Airline Pilot Flight School trains under part 61 of 14 CFR, at Van Nuys Airport. It is not an airline, it is not owned by one, and no carrier holds a cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring arrangement with us. We do not guarantee an interview, a job or a salary.
No pass rate, no graduate count and no rating of any kind is published on this site. The operation is new, any such figure would come from a sample too small to mean anything, and inventing one is the easiest lie available in this industry. What is published instead is the syllabus, the price, the hours and the regulation behind each requirement.
The Security Assessment And The Medical Both Take Time You Do Not Control
If you are a candidate, open the security threat assessment as soon as you have chosen a school, and book the FAA medical examination in the same week. Neither waits for the other. In the meantime, an hour in an airplane costs $229 and settles whether any of this is worth starting.
Where To Go Next
What You Would Be Enrolling In
Every Program Price On One PageThe Airline Pilot Training ProgramThe Assessment FlightHow Training Is Structured
Part 61 Training StructurePilot Certificates And Ratings In OrderFull Motion Simulator TrainingFly 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 →