Commercial License Question

CowboyJake

CowboyJake

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CowboyJake98
A buddy of mine has around 1000 hours of private pilot flight time. Is there a way he can get his commercial license without flight school or minimal school? Can he just take a written and practical test? Or is there anyway to expedite getting it?
 
You need a CFI to sign off to take the practical. You need to learn how to perform maneuvers to the satisfaction of the examiners in order to pass. There are certain minimum hour requirements that simply having 1000 hours may not have checked those boxes. You or your friend need to know the requirements and limitations of commercial as part of all this. If not instrument rated, then commercial privileges will be pretty limiting. All that said, it’s not that hard.
 
I'm commercial and instument with 1500 hours as a spray pilot. I can definetly attest to his flight ability and he is a private applicator spraying his own crops. If he flew with a CFI and showed him can he skip the minimum hour requirments and be signed off to take the practical or does he need to log dual for the same minimums as flight school?
 
He shohld talk to a CFI. Should be minimal training (maneuvers specific to the commercial, like chandelles), then he needs to pass the written, oral, and checkride for commercial.

If he doesn’t already know these are the requirements, I’d say he’ll need to brush up on his knowledge of the regs and paperwork to pass the test.
 
“Can he just take a written and practical test?”

For Commercial certificate requirements, refer to 14 CFR Part 61, Subpart F including § 61.129 Aeronautical experience:
(a) For an airplane single-engine rating. … a person who applies for a commercial pilot certificate … hours of flight time as a pilot that consists of at least:
(3) 20 hours of training on the areas of operation listed in § 61.127(b)(1) of this part that includes at least—
(i) Ten hours of instrument training using a view-limiting device including attitude instrument flying, partial panel skills, recovery from unusual flight attitudes, and intercepting and tracking navigational systems. Five hours of the 10 hours required on instrument training must be in a single engine airplane;
(ii) 10 hours of training in a complex airplane, a turbine-powered airplane, or a technically advanced airplane (TAA) that meets the requirements of paragraph (j) of this section, or any combination thereof.
…
(v) Three hours in a single-engine airplane with an authorized instructor in preparation for the practical test within the preceding 2 calendar months from the month of the test.
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CowboyJake said:
I'm commercial and instument with 1500 hours as a spray pilot. I can definetly attest to his flight ability and he is a private applicator spraying his own crops. If he flew with a CFI and showed him can he skip the minimum hour requirments and be signed off to take the practical or does he need to log dual for the same minimums as flight school?
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No, there's no skipping the requirements listed in 61.129, but perhaps he's already met some or all of them. Then he just needs to pass the written and fly with a cfi enough to get signed off to take and pass the check ride.
 
thanks for the advise. he's just so busy and can't hardly find the time but i'm trying to convince him to do it.
 
My post was all wrong… just deleted it!

Worst case looks like 20 hrs unless he’s already got a lot of it from other training events.
 
An applicant should review the requirments with a fine-toothed comb, ideally with a CFI that is familiar with the examiner's style of examination. There are a lot of specifics in the requirments that have some "gotchas" for which examiners can fail an applicant without ever getting into the airplane.
 
CowboyJake said:
I'm commercial and instument with 1500 hours as a spray pilot. I can definetly attest to his flight ability and he is a private applicator spraying his own crops. If he flew with a CFI and showed him can he skip the minimum hour requirments and be signed off to take the practical or does he need to log dual for the same minimums as flight school?
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Get your CFI and he can be your first Commercial student! Good motivation for you both. :)
 
Lindberg said:
No, there's no skipping the requirements listed in 61.129, but perhaps he's already met some or all of them. Then he just needs to pass the written and fly with a cfi enough to get signed off to take and pass the check ride.
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Yeah, basically there's no such thing as "I'm such a great pilot, I don't need to meet the requirements."
 
You cannot skip the requirements and you’d need some minimal training to get prepared to take the checkride. It is like fine tuning riding a bike, so lots of variables here.
 
CowboyJake said:
A buddy of mine has around 1000 hours of private pilot flight time. Is there a way he can get his commercial license without flight school or minimal school? Can he just take a written and practical test? Or is there anyway to expedite getting it?
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Number of hours doesn’t change anything. He still has to meet the requirements of 61.129 and pass a written and checkride.
 
I took my commerical check ride in Henderson, NV, years ago not because I needed it but because I had a few days to kill and had won a little extra money playing blackjack. I had over 3000 hours by then but needed a few flights to meet the requirements, most in the dual cross-country training category (I had plenty of cross country time but very little with an instructor). With lots of night flying logged I almost had to add some night work but had managed to log the 10 flights at a towered field with an operating tower with clear evidence that both the take off and landing were at night. The instructor knew the DPE and his routine well, which helped so when I went for the check ride my logs were all "correct" for the most picky scrutiny.

So total hours are meaningless, as others have said. If you haven't been doing the maneuvers recently it's also worth it to practice doing those to commercial standards before the ride.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Not everyone is into the details of pilot certification regulations and many simply forget about them once they have what they need.
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It's amazing how often you "kind of" know the regulation but need to check it before putting your foot in your mouth. And sometimes the regulations quietly change.
 
Racerx said:
How are you commercial and asking this?
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midlifeflyer said:
Not everyone is into the details of pilot certification regulations and many simply forget about them once they have what they need.
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Agreed. Heck, I fly with guys that got their Commercial and CFI certs through military equivalency, then got their ATP as the first and only civilian training and checkride. They very likely have no idea what's in 61.129.

A little less extreme, I can definitely see a working Commercial Pilot, especially one who went to a Part 141 school where all the training was laid out nicely and met all the rules, having little actual knowledge of 61.129.

For that matter, I'll bet most senior airline pilots no longer have a working knowledge of 61.129 either. Certainly not all the LOIs and other clarifications. It's just not needed in their job.
 
He needs to get familiar with the regulations for hours needed for the commercial certificate. Also he needs to be able to fly the maneuvers that are required . Some of his hours may not fit the requirements.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Not everyone is into the details of pilot certification regulations and many simply forget about them once they have what they need.
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RussR said:
Agreed. Heck, I fly with guys that got their Commercial and CFI certs through military equivalency, then got their ATP as the first and only civilian training and checkride. They very likely have no idea what's in 61.129.

A little less extreme, I can definitely see a working Commercial Pilot, especially one who went to a Part 141 school where all the training was laid out nicely and met all the rules, having little actual knowledge of 61.129.

For that matter, I'll bet most senior airline pilots no longer have a working knowledge of 61.129 either. Certainly not all the LOIs and other clarifications. It's just not needed in their job.
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I don’t know….
I could not begin to recite what all the requirements are for a specific certificate, but I certainly know there *are* requirements and they can’t be skipped.
 
Someone that can’t be bothered to research what they need to be a commercial pilot has no business being a commercial pilot. JMO
 
dbahn said:
An applicant should review the requirments with a fine-toothed comb, ideally with a CFI that is familiar with the examiner's style of examination. There are a lot of specifics in the requirments that have some "gotchas" for which examiners can fail an applicant without ever getting into the airplane.
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Correct that is about step one for a commercial pilot applicant. As a Commercial pilot he will need to know and be able to read the rules and requirements significantly better than a private pilot is required to. There are more rules that need to be learned an followed, and as a commercial pilot he may run into a lot more situations where he will need to lookup, read, and understand the rules.

Next he will need to learn how to fly the specific maneuvers for a commercial certificate. This is about expanding his experience and skills, if he really is good at them it will be easy for him to demonstrate or learn. The experience he does have will help a lot in some areas, maybe not so much in other areas.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
Racerx said:
How are you commercial and asking this?
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I chatted with an American captain once at KMIA while waiting for a flight, told him I was working on my commercial and he asked me if you needed to pass a checkride for that...
 
mryan75 said:
I chatted with an American captain once at KMIA while waiting for a flight, told him I was working on my commercial and he asked me if you needed to pass a checkride for that...
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May have been military. No checkride for commercial.
 
Kritchlow said:
May have been military. No checkride for commercial.
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True. At the end of my Air Force pilot training, I took the commercial knowledge exam and received a commercial certificate with SEL, MEL (limited to centerline thrust), and instruments. I have only taken two civilian checkrides - SES and CFI.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
True. At the end of my Air Force pilot training, I took the commercial knowledge exam and received a commercial certificate with SEL, MEL (limited to centerline thrust), and instruments. I have only taken two civilian checkrides - SES and CFI.
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I didn't get my ASEL. I did not do FSP and the T-41. Kist Tweet and T-38.
 
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