Becoming a commercial pilot can be a fantastic rewarding career for those who enjoy flying, traveling, a professional challenge and making a good income.
Before you decide whether becoming a commercial pilot is right for you, you need to assess your personal goals, aptitude and personality to ensure that the career is the right fit for you.
A professional pilot needs to be well disciplined and be able to follow strict procedures and routines. The learning and practising never stops, so you need to be prepared for continual checking and re-checking throughout your career. Depending on whether you fly for a regional airline, domestic airline or international airline, you may find yourself away from home quite often, so if you’re not the sort of person that likes to be away, perhaps its not the right job for you. Another thing to keep in mind is that airlines tend to fly day and night, so that means some unusual work hours and disrupted sleep patterns. Are you okay with this?
Like any job, there are positives and negatives. You just need to weigh up the pros and cons for you and see whether becoming a commercial pilot is the right fit for you.
Becoming a Commercial Pilot: The Steps
Step 1: Private Pilot License: the holder of a Private Pilot License can fly for recreation. He/she can take passengers and fly a large variety of aircraft but they cannot be paid to fly.
Step 2: If you want to be paid to fly, you need a Commercial Pilot License. Thats why the word “Commercial” is in the term. In our training, all the flying up to Commercial Pilot License is VFR (Visual Flight Rules) and using Single Engine Aircraft.
Step 3: Multi Engine Endorsement: as all large airliners have more than one engine, you will need a Multi Engine Endorsement to fly these aircraft.
Step 4: Instrument Rating: all airlines fly by IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) not by VFR so as an Airline Pilot you must have an Instrument Rating.