A basic question, without probably be no further entries. You’re interested in aviation and wondering where to start, or how to become a pilot? Moreover on the internet you can find many websites with different information. I visited many of them by myself. Searched of topics of interest to me and noticed one thing that connects all such places. The vast majority of them were websites of commercial training centers. Each of them provided only one goal and one type of career path. What was that? Of course, the most expensive, which would bind the student to the training center for a long time and provide a steady supply of a fairly large amount of money.
When I started flying, I saw only one way too. Start from scratch and go step by step for my place in airline company. It never occurred to me that there were people who could have a different plan. But returning to the question from the beginning of the post: “how to become a pilot?”.
When PPL private pilot license is enough for you?
- When you want to fly for your own pleasure and you don’t care about making money for transporting people.
- If you fulfill your dreams from your youth, because you can finally afford it.
- Because you fly and you want to be able to quickly move from point A to point B.
However interesting fact, with a private pilot license you can become a flight instructor! Also even in this case the way to earn on flying is not closed.
A flight instructor may have a PPL license.
To sum up, if you do it for yourself and you do not see yourself in the future as an “air driver”, then all you need is a private pilot license. The time and money you would spend to taking the next stages better invest in practical aviation experience.
How can you make money with flying?
In spite of everything there is also a large group of people who want to work as a pilot and see their future there. At this point, the it gets a little more complicated. Because you need to think about developing a plan and obtaining more licenses and ratings. Is this the only way to earn money by flying airliners? Again, my answer is – no. As a commercial pilot, you can get paid for flying. This is the basic difference between a CPL commercial pilot license and a PPL private pilot license.
For example after taking additional ratings, you can do:
- agro flying
- aerial firefighting
- flight instructor flights
- flying with skydivers
- familiarization flights
- scenic tours
- aircraft repositioning
As you can see there are several possibilities. Of course, they require training and money to build the appropriate flight time, but this is not impossible.
Finally, we reach the question that most people ask, when they come to the course:
How to become an airline pilot?
In this case it is quite expensive and quite long way. Why I don’t specify it with time? Because it is an individual matter for each person, which consists of many factors and variables.
First thing starts with signing up for classes and passing the theoretical course to the PPL private pilot license. Already during the training you can start practical classes. The next step is to pass the theory exam at the Civil Aviation Authority and then pass the practical one.
With the still warm PPL license, you can start building flight time and your first VFR Night training for flying after sunset. At the same time, nothing prevents you from enrolling in the ATPL theoretical course and take a moment to pass the ICAO Aviation English exam. Believe me, you will thank me that you have it all off your mind and that does not stop you from further training.
However, your main task is the ATPL theoretical course that you attend all the time. After sitting many hours in the classroom and dedicating several hundred hours to self-study, you can take the official exams at Civil Aviation Authority. Finally passing them with a positive result will be your ticket to the next trainings.
Next in order are the right to fly by instruments and further building flight time. Remember that each step has its minimum conditions that must be met. After that is the right to fly on multi-engine aircraft MEPL (landplanes). Then a quick training on the right to fly according to the indications of instruments on a multi-engine aircraft IR ME. You can combine it with a performance-based navigation PBN training. Each of the above qualifications ends with an practical exam. With the above training package you are almost ready to submit your CV. Just a practical course for a CPL commercial pilot license.
Finally the implementation of the above steps gives you what we call the ATPL “frozen” license, this is not an official name, rather an abbreviation found in the aviation world.
What ratings are necessary to apply to the airline?
Is it enough to apply to the line? It could be this way, but also here the requirements are variable. For instance details to be met by candidates vary depending on the airline. For example there are companies that, at the time of writing this post, just expected 200 hours of flight time, but there are those where you need to have 300 hours, or even 500 hours or more. What most companies require of a candidate is MCC training.
With such a package you can try our luck on recruitment.
It is comforting that regardless of the goal you are pursuing, the beginning of the road is always the same and you will still have time to verify, change or modify your plans.
You can find more information on specific types of licenses, ratings, requirements and answer for question how to become a pilot that you can find in the links.
Of course the above list is up to date at the time of writing this post. The information contained in the post applies only to European licenses (EASA) and conditions that apply in Poland. Moreover it is also just an example of the order in which you want to get more permissions (the cheapest from a financial point of view), but not necessarily the best or best suited to your needs. Of course, if you notice any inaccuracies or need explanations, feel free to write to me. I will definitely answer and / or correct the text of the entry.
