Commercial Ticket Benefits

Jack C-137

Jack C-137

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Jack C-137
So I'm considering taking the plunge and going in for commercial. Of course I'll look forward to how much better a pilot it'll make me, but I mostly want to because I've heard it'll lower my insurance.

Is that true? How much did commercial lower your insurance? Also I was hoping to pick up some banner towing work in the summer just to fill out my schedule and make (read: not waste as much) money flying.
 
Well, I can't speak to the insurance part, not the reason I am doing it, but I am fairly far along on my commercial training and hope to take the ride here fairly soon. My 2 cents, it can make you a better pilot. The maneuvers require you to have better control and feel of the airplane in my opinion, and some of them can be pretty fun too. I really enjoy power off 180 accuracy landings, however lazy 8's not so much.... I don't have my ticket yet so not an expert by any means, just where I am coming from, and feel it was a good decision for me.
 
Jack C-137 said:
So I'm considering taking the plunge and going in for commercial. Of course I'll look forward to how much better a pilot it'll make me, but I mostly want to because I've heard it'll lower my insurance.

Is that true? How much did commercial lower your insurance? Also I was hoping to pick up some banner towing work in the summer just to fill out my schedule and make (read: not waste as much) money flying.
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Lower insurance? If it does, the break even point is going to be years.

Insurance carriers might also consider you a higher risk as a commercial pilot. Call your agent, that's not a good reason to do the training. Do it because you want to.
 
For me, getting the commercial taught me to think for myself. Up until then, I did pretty much everything I did in the plane the way I did it because that's the way a CFI told me to do it. I didn't really question any of it and I tried not to ever deviate from any of it for any reason. The commercial didn't really change the way I did most things. But after that I did them the way I did because I better understood the hows and whys instead of simply doing them the way I did because a CFI said so. And that gives you the ability to much more easily and safely deviate from the norm when necessary and appropriate.
 
Jack C-137 said:
I was hoping to pick up some banner towing work in the summer just to fill out my schedule and make (read: not waste as much) money flying.
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Unless something really changed, banner towing really isn't a way to make any money flying. I went for a banner towing job once and the pay was $3.50 an hour..... Although it was 22 years ago.

I would have taken the job if the instructor had not have tried to kill us on two consecutive flights.
 
No.

Not really, it is just a few extra maneuvers and a log book audit, even my ATP didn’t cut much off the insurance, the savings don’t even match the price for the checkride, let alone the written or dual or rental rate.
 
As for insurance, a friend of mine is an aircraft insurance agent. I was there as she was answering another pilot who asked the same question. The answer is no, it generally doesn't affect your insurance at all (in either direction). The instrument rating gets you a good discount usually, but the commercial - nothing.
 
RussR said:
As for insurance, a friend of mine is an aircraft insurance agent. I was there as she was answering another pilot who asked the same question. The answer is no, it generally doesn't affect your insurance at all (in either direction). The instrument rating gets you a good discount usually, but the commercial - nothing.
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That’s been my experience when asking, maybe she was talking to me:). I’ve gotten asked more than once “when was your last IPC.” I wonder if you said ‘never, I’ve stayed current’ if that would make a difference. It wouldn’t surprise me if they gave better discounts with recent IPC’s.
 
Jack C-137 said:
So I'm considering taking the plunge and going in for commercial. Of course I'll look forward to how much better a pilot it'll make me, but I mostly want to because I've heard it'll lower my insurance.

Is that true? How much did commercial lower your insurance? Also I was hoping to pick up some banner towing work in the summer just to fill out my schedule and make (read: not waste as much) money flying.
Click to expand...

I wonder if life insurance rate may actually go up if you held a commercial certificate.
 
One thing to consider is that it's possible you will be held to a higher standard if you screw up. Something like a runway incursion, etc. I don't know if it's true but I have been told this by more than one person, but never by someone with the FAA. Yet another thing that I forgot to ask the Feds in Oshkosh...
 
idahoflier said:
One thing to consider is that it's possible you will be held to a higher standard if you screw up. Something like a runway incursion, etc. I don't know if it's true but I have been told this by more than one person, but never by someone with the FAA. Yet another thing that I forgot to ask the Feds in Oshkosh...
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Yup. They don’t like it when someone who is supposed to know better does something stupid. Happened to friend many years ago. The guy at GADO(now fsdo) said just that to him when they gave him a little vacation from flying.
 
RussR said:
As for insurance, a friend of mine is an aircraft insurance agent. I was there as she was answering another pilot who asked the same question. The answer is no, it generally doesn't affect your insurance at all (in either direction). The instrument rating gets you a good discount usually, but the commercial - nothing.
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That is my experience as well!

I don't own an airplane yet but I did speak to a lot of insurance guys and they said it really comes down to how much time you have in the type of aircraft you are insuring. The more experience you have the cheaper it will be.
 
Zeldman said:
Unless something really changed, banner towing really isn't a way to make any money flying. I went for a banner towing job once and the pay was $3.50 an hour..... Although it was 22 years ago.

I would have taken the job if the instructor had not have tried to kill us on two consecutive flights.
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It may have been more than 22 years ago, as that's below minimum wage at the time!
 
I mean, you can fly jump planes on the weekend and make a little cash while improving your short approaches to speed up turn around. You can also get a type rating and fly corporate jets. Also, you can fly air taxi.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
It may have been more than 22 years ago, as that's below minimum wage at the time!
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It's aviation Kenny! Living the dream! Minimum wage....that's cute. :)
 
N1120A said:
I mean, you can fly jump planes on the weekend and make a little cash while improving your short approaches to speed up turn around. You can also get a type rating and fly corporate jets. Also, you can fly air taxi.
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Depends on his hours, lowest time option you mentioned was DZ ops, and that's 500tt, also a ton of fun if you get in with the right DZ, also get into jumping and enjoy the culture.
 
I'm still a little fuzzy on Commercial. I have a PPL, If I decide to get my Commercial and purchase an airplane. Can I charge passengers to fly? Or do I need to be hired by a company to do that?
 
FloridaPilot said:
I'm still a little fuzzy on Commercial. I have a PPL, If I decide to get my Commercial and purchase an airplane. Can I charge passengers to fly? Or do I need to be hired by a company to do that?
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You'd probably want to establish an LLC to, well, Limit your Liability in the event of an accident, but with a commercial ticket you could charge people for rides. I'm sure there's a bunch of air charter loops you have to jump through to be street legal.
 
My C150 insurance dropped $0.00 when I got my instrument, and $0.00 when I got my commercial.
 
Jack C-137 said:
You'd probably want to establish an LLC to, well, Limit your Liability in the event of an accident, but with a commercial ticket you could charge people for rides. I'm sure there's a bunch of air charter loops you have to jump through to be street legal.
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Oww, be careful with that. You can't just "charge people for rides", there are a lot of limitations on what kind of rides you can offer without a 119.
 
idahoflier said:
One thing to consider is that it's possible you will be held to a higher standard if you screw up. Something like a runway incursion, etc. I don't know if it's true but I have been told this by more than one person, but never by someone with the FAA. Yet another thing that I forgot to ask the Feds in Oshkosh...
Click to expand...
Certainly if you get a CDL instead of a regular driver's licence the requirements for operation become more stringent.
 
FloridaPilot said:
I'm still a little fuzzy on Commercial. I have a PPL, If I decide to get my Commercial and purchase an airplane. Can I charge passengers to fly? Or do I need to be hired by a company to do that?
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Flying people or stuff in your airplane from point a to point b on demand for hire falls under part 135 of the regs and involves a boat load of hoops to jump through to make it legal. Not impossible for John Q Airplane Owner to do, but generally not practical either.

Doing sight seeing rides with your own plane also takes jumping through some hoops but is much more doable. What's even more doable is offering what is called pilot services. That's where a company buys and maintains a plane and hires you to fly them in it where they want to go when they want to go.
 
“What's even more doable is offering what is called pilot services. That's where a company buys and maintains a plane and hires you to fly them in it where they want to go when they want to go.”

Yes!! This was the answer I was looking for. It is exactly my situation.

Thanks

Dr. Mike
 
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