Pilots licence

[vipercraft]

I have always had the plan of getting my commerical license and becoming a commerical pilot. Of course now with the job opening not looking to great, it appears, I may have to find something else. But I was still wondering, is it possible to get a commerical license through a local flight school? If so, what are the aviation colleges for? If anyone could kind of give me a step by step of what you have to get, and why, that would bre really great. Sorry if this doesn't belong on this forum, but the others have layouts I personally can't stand and I thought this was the easiest.

Thanks

[robbie1472]

Hey I'd like to get a step by step for a Private licence. Questions like: should I get a physical first or pick out a school? What does the physical consist of?

Something I know about for your question is that there are private schools that offer Commercial training. Orlando-Sanford has such a school, it's not as prestigious as Embry Riddle up the street but I know a guy who went there and got his cert.

[KenG01]

Regarding a commercial licence, it depends on the school. Many schools do offer commercial license training. My school offers up to CFII. However, others may not have instructors or equipment sufficient for all ratings.

As for PPL, I am not completely qualified to answer because I don't know what everyone else has done, but I am currently 10 hours into my PPL training. BTW, this is for the USA. Here is what I did. I checked around my area for the different schools and found several I liked on first impression. I visited them and then narrowed it down to 2 or three. I took a discovery flight with the best one of the schools and liked the atmosphere and what they had to offer so I stuck with them.

Things to consider when starting with a school (from my experience and what others have told me):

-Don't settle on the 1st school you see
-Don't look for the absolute cheapest quote (some schools will quote you the base cost for 40 hrs of training and most students require more than 40); expect about $4000 to $6000 depending on how often you fly (about 2-3 times a week is best)
-Interview your prospective instructor and take a discovery flight with him/her.
-You don't have to stick with the 1st instructor you encounter. If the instructor and you don't mesh, move on to another one.
-Talk to other students at the school (especially students of your prospective instructor)
-Find out what the pass/fail rate is on Knowledge/Checkride exams
-How does the school conduct ground school (Cessna/King CDs/videos, class format, individual instruction from instructor). It all depends on how you learn best.
-How many instructors/planes do they have
-Regarding your instructor, how available is he/she going to be (nothing is worse than having to wait around for days on your instructor to be available to fly)

I could go on, but that's the basics of what I did. Also, you don't officially need your medical (class 3) until you solo. It is good to get it done before then just in case you don't pass and all the training will be wasted. However, the physical is nothing ellaborate. They will check your vision (needs to be about 20/40 with corrective lenses and you need some color vision). If you don't have perfect vision or color vision, you may be able to get a waver. They will check your heart for problems and ensure that you are not going to pass out unexpectedly. You will have to answer a number of questions on the form for the exam regarding your medical history. Just ask the school what is required and they will let you know. In short, they just want to make sure you are not going to pass out or die unexpectedly while flying the plane.

Hope that helps some.

-----
Ken :-wave

[jonpayne]

hi fellow pilot

i currently attend comair aviation school in sanford fl.
i started as a private and am now 1/2 way through my commerical.
it has been about 7 months but really 6 since i lost a month to the restricted vfr. th frist thing i did was to get a first class medical to make sure everything was fine. now you do not need a first class for private or many other ratings but it is just good to know that you can get it. as to how hard it is i have had school physicals that are harder then that.
as too schools there are hundres. if you go to a college then they want you to get an aeronautical degree which in embray riddles case takes 4 years. my school is based on how long it takes you to get each rateing some people have done it in 6 months the avg is 1 year. you have private, then instrument commerical multi commerical cfi and finally cfii. once done with that you interview with the school and more then likely get a job as a instructor. after about a year and completing your meii
you interview with an airline. the advantage of our school is that it is owned by comair who is owened by delta. comair gets at least 75% of thier pilot from our school and they start out in a regional jet. hope this helps any more questions email me

pilotpayne@yahoo.com

[flyinggriffin]

LAST EDITED ON Oct-15-01 AT 04:44PM (EDT)[p] By all means get see if you can qualify for a first class medical. You only need a second class for commercial and a third class to take the flight test. Making the the medical your first step will save you money if there is anything in your medical background that would prevent you from getting a second class or even a medical at all.
The basic differences between the classes of medicals is the amount of time they are current. They revert to a lower class untill you get to the third class, but untill then a first becomes a second class after 6 months and a second becomes a third six months after that. If you are under 40 your third class is good for three years, us old geezers have to take one every two years.
Basically the difference between the exams is the requirment for eyesight. You need corrected 20-20 vision for the first and second class and 20-40 for the third. If you can pass a normal physical from your family doctor you can usually pass the FAA medical unless you are taking some sort of prescription drug.
I would suggest going to the AOPA site for information on the full requirments.
There are still a lot of jobs out there for the fly for pay guys that may not be glamorious as an airline captain. You can fly night cargo, on demand air taxi, or become a CFI. No matter what you get to fly on someone elses dime, and build up the hours untill the cycle repeats itself and the hireing cycle takes off again. Remember that there is an age 60 rule for airline pilots and a lot of them will be hanging up their hats in the not too distant future.

[vipercraft]

So basically if you go to a college you get a degree (will this just help you get a job over someone else, or what's the purpose, also, what do you learn when you get the degree?) and you may have a better chance getting hired at an airline if the college is owned by the airline? I just wanted to clarify this, thanks for all the help already. Also, what exactly is the cfi and the cfii and so forth. I havn't figure those out yet.

[jonpayne]

i am sorry cfi is certified flight instructor, cfii is certified flight instructor instruments. no college is owned by an airline
my school is just based on rateings. haveing a college degree is a help but you only need a 2 year degree for delta and it does not have to envole aviation. if you can get your degree go for it. but you don't have to fly for an airline and if you did you would need an airline transport rateing. but with your commerical you could be a corprate pilot. hope this helps.

[ajluptak]

LAST EDITED ON Oct-15-01 AT 11:58PM (EDT)[p]From my experience and from what I've heard, a bachelors degree is imperative if you want to pursue a career in aviation. The majors and many of the regional airlines (commuter) would like you to have a bachelors degree in SOMETHING. It doesn't have to be aviation related, they would just like you to have a 4 year degree from somewhere.

A commercial license allows you to fly for compensation.

A CFI is Certified Flight Instructor. It is just like the commercial pilots license ( which is a pre-requsite for a CFI) only for the CFI checkride, you must explain how you are going to teach someone the manuvers you perform for the examiner.

A CFII is the same as above except that you are instrument rated and you are able to teach someone instrument (IFR) flying. It is a seperate rating from the CFI, not all CFI's are CFII.

Another one is MEI, or multi-engine instructor, just in case you come across that acronym too.

And now for my experience. I wish I had gone to a four year school right away. I have been trapped by poor cirriculum and a general misunderstanding of aviation at the two junior colleges I attended. I am a private pilot, with instrument rating and currently working on my commercial license. I have about 220 hours logged time in mostly C-152/ C-172 aircraft.

I work for Usairways as an aircraft cleaner so my school time is limited by my work schedule. I will be enrolling in Utah Valley State College, which offers an on-line Bachelors of Science in Aviation. This means I will take classes over the internet, but I will continue to fly at my current flight school. It may be something to look into, check them out at www.aviationuniversity.com. Make sure a flight school in your area has an agreement with them first, they have that info and more at the website.

AJL