Commercial Certificate Explained

If you want to be a professional pilot, you will definitely want to earn your Commercial Certificate as soon as you possibly can. This will allow you to fly for compensation or hire. There are general requirements for a Commercial Certificate, and there are, as you would guess, also flight requirements. Following are the U.S Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) rules. As always, if you expect to be living outside the U.S. or are a citizen of a country other than the U.S., you will want to carefully check the requirements in your home country for a Commercial Certificate, as requirements differ by country. If you train in the U.S., you can, however, convert your earned FAA pilot certificates to those of your home country when you return, as long as you have satisfied your country's aviation authority's minimum requirements. Sometimes converting your certificates takes no additional student or flight time -- just certificate conversion paperwork. In some countries, however, it may require require additional study.

FAA General Requirements: 1. Be able to read, understand and speak the English language well. 2. Be at least 18 years of age. 3. Obtain at least a third-class FAA medical certificate. 4. Have earned at least a Private Pilot Certificate. (An Instrument Rating is also highly recommended). 4. Pass the FAA Commercial Written Exam, as well as the FAA practical flight test.

Flight Requirements: You must have logged at least 250 hours flight time as a pilot. This may include not more than 50 hours time of simulator instruction, and the simulator must be a FAA-approved simulator. Your 250 hours of flight time needs to also include 100 hours in powered aircraft; 100 hours as pilot-in-command, with 50 of those hours cross-country; 10 hours of instrument time with five of those hours in a single-engine aircraft; 10 hours in a complex airplane or turbine powered aircraft; two hours of day visual flight rules (VFR) cross-country, straight-line from departure point; one solo cross-country of a minimum of 300 nautical miles (nm), with three landings and a straightlilne of at least 250 nm from your departure point; five hours of night solo flight in VFR conditions, with a least 10 takeoffs/landings at a controlled airport with an operating control tower.