What education and training is required to become a commercial airline pilot?

Answer 1

If you want to be a pilot, four years in flight school. You will need about four years of college, any major, and you need to get your commercial pilots license. Now if you just want to fly a small one propeller aircraft, like a Cessna, you just need a private pilots license (PPL) and you need your solo rating. But that's only for none IFR flights, meaning none instrument flight rule flights, meaning NO FLYING IN BAD WEATHER!!!. Also it is best to have good grades because if you want to fly for a big airline like Delta or American Airlines you will need to have a good resumé.

Answer 2

1. Get a CPL, Commercial Pilot License.

2. Get enough hours on multi-engine flights

3. Have excellent vision and medical condition
Here is the typical route for acivilian pilot: 1. Get your pilot certificates and ratings via a flying club or school at the local airport, a university aviation program. A newly certificated commercial pilot with instrument and multi-engine ratings usually has about 250 hours. This is not enough for the airlines*. (See note* at bottom) 2. Build up flight experience until about 1,000 flight hours. Most regional airlines require pilots to have at least 1,000 hours of flight time, with 100 of that being in multi-engine aircraft and a Commercial/Multi/Instrument certificate. (An Airline Transport Pilot certificate is not required until you make captain.) Common time building jobs are: banner towing, skydive pilot, pipeline patrol, traffic watch or flight instruction (with the additional Certified Flight Instructor rating) 3. Get a degree. You do not need a degree in aviation, but having a degree in any subject is a requirement to getting hired on at a major airline. The regionals aren't so picky. Many think they must have an aviation degree to have an edge but when or if you are ever furloughed during your career an aviation degree is useless. 4. Upon reaching the magic 1,000 hours begin applying! Hopefully you will get hired. Learn to live on a budget as regional airline pay is not very good. After building up about 2,000-3,000 hours and "paying your dues" at a regional you then qualify for a job with a major carrier. 5. Begin applying all over again to the majors..... * There are some airline academy programs (Delta Connection Academy, Mesa Ailines Pilot Development, Flight Safety among others) that offer a "quick entry" scheme into the right seat of a regional airline in two years or less. They are very costly and do not guarantee a job, but an interview only. If you pass their program and the airline interview, you could very well be hired as a First Officer at 300-400 hours. Some are very pro this method while others in the industry are not as they feel it's "buying a job". Some academy grads will face discrimination during their career because of this. There are two routes to becoming a commercial pilot. One is through the military. Contact your local recruitment office for details. Dealing with ex military people, this is not the route to go if an airline career is your SOLE reason for joining. The other route is to fund your education on your own. The typical progression of training is to obtain your private pilot certificate first. This is basically your drivers license for an airplane. This takes a minimum of 40 hours and could take up to as many as 100 flight hours, not including time on the ground spent with a flight instructor. This will cost anywhere between 4 and 8 thousand dollars. Local flight schools can be found your yellow pages. Next in the progression of certificates is your instrument rating, which allows you to fly in bad weather. After that you get your commercial pilot license and then your multi engine rating. At about this time you have about 300 flight hours and have spent about 2 years training. You are still not really marketable to an airline. Most regional airlines hire at about 1500 flight hours and 100 multi engine hours. You can either buy this time and fly it yourself, but that would cost tens of thousands of dollars. Or, you could obtain your flight instructor's certificate and teach flying for a couple of years. Expect to fly with a regional airline for 2 - 5 years before you become captain, and then expect to fly 1000 more hours before you are marketable to a major airline. By this time you're ready to fly the big jets! Many colleges offer a Bachelors degree in Professional Piloting. This is a great way to increase you marketability for your future career and also build seat time. With a military background you are even further along as you have a multi-engine rating and more hours built up. Actually, that isn't true. In 2005 about 65% of new hire major airline pilots were from a civilian background. Over the past 10-15 years, pilot have been increasing coming from a civilian back ground. http://www.jet-jobs.com

Answer 3

To be eligible for hire as a pilot, you only need to have your pilot's licence and be certified by the FAA for commercial flying (which is a type of pilots licence). Any other education is unnecessary, though advisable due to the often competitive nature of the industry.

Answer 4

This is what Delta recommends for people just starting out: "If you are an individual seeking pilot training and are not sponsored by an aircraft operator or airline, there are several programs around the U.S. that are designed to help you obtain the training and certificates that will be required. Though we cannot recommend a specific school, we can refer you to the site of an industry leading company that may be able to help." Check out the Delta website just to get an idea. From there you can find and compare other programs. Pilots need to pass regular proficiency tests and may proceed to the next level of training at different periods of time depending on individual progress.