Steps to becoming a commercial pilot

Requirements Of Becoming A Pilot / December 14, 2021

Well there are a bunch of ways to approach this. First, you want to choose which governing body you would want your license from. In other words, where you want to do your training and work afterwards.

The ICAO is the international civil aviation organization, so you'd want your license issued from an ICAO member. The major ones would be the FAA in the US, the JAA which includes almost all of Europe, and the CASA in Australia.
Personally, I believe the safest bet would be the JAA license if you're an international, or the FAA license if you're American.

For all the licenses, the process is about the same:

1-PPL, the private pilot license which allows you to fly without getting paid for hire and in visual flight rules.

2-Hour Building, you build hours after getting your PPL to get to the required flight time needed for your next license, it all depends

3-IR, which is the instrument rating. You fly an airplane with no visual reference other than your instrument. This is one of the most important ratings you want to get. It is also informally known as the bad weather rating

4-More hour building to meet the minimums for your CPL. This completely depends on how many hours you have and how many you need depending on the governing body. For example FAA Part 61 requires 250 hours before your check ride. You will have to check with the regulations at the time and you'll know for sure.

5-CPL, or commercial pilots license. This license allows you to get paid for your services as a pilot. It allows you to legally get employed.

6-ME, Multi engine rating which allows you to fly airplanes with two engines and more. This rating can be done anywhere through your flight training, but normally what flight schools do is they give you all your training on single engine airplanes so that it costs you significantly less. Then they give you your CPL on a single engine, then they have you do your ME so that you get a CPL SE ME IR. Which practically means that you can be hired to fly both singles and multis for hire.

Note that if you choose to do the JAA, you have to do after your PPL 14 theory subjects called ATPL Theory (Airline Transport Pilots License). When you do them, you would get after your done with the remaining steps, something informally called a Frozen ATPL.