Part 61/141 Training

[Long Beach CFII]

I'll clarify CFIMEI's point. Its not incorrect but maybe misleading. There is nothing stopping a Part 61 trained Private Pilot from commencing Part 141 Instrument Commercial training. You wouldn't loose any of your hours, and as Greaser mentioned, it could be to your advantage as you can finish up sooner. However, if you were to start training for your Instrument & Commercial under FAR Part 141 you can at any time switch to FAR Part 61 and not 'loose 50% of your logged time'. The trouble comes, in when doing so, you would then need 50 hours cross country Pilot In Command (PIC) - FAR Part 61.65 - to meet the Instrument Rating requirements and also FAR Part 61 Commercial requirements.

If perhaps you didn't get along with the Part 141 school, you could transfer to another school, who could then only credit your previous training up to 50% - at the discretion of the Chief Instructor. In this case, it would be wise to go Part 61 route. It would also be possible to do single engine Instrument/Commercial under part 141, while doing part 61 multi add-on ratings concurrently.

Part 141 training is excellent for ab initio Airline / Career training, it is intended to be more structured, and involve FAA approved flight school, facilities, equipment and airplanes. A part 141 school will also have a Chief Instructor, and maybe an Assistant Chief Instructor, occasionally, depending on the size of the school, it may have a Chief Ground Instructor, and Chief Flight Instructor, along with Assistant Chiefs, and Check Instructors, all of which will have taken a practical test with the FAA, and be very familiar with every element on the syllabus. The syllabus will involve a number of Stage Checks taken throughout the duration of the course, and an 'End of Course' check prior to the school recommending the candidate for a checkride. This EoC is completed with a Chief or Asst. Chief instructor. In this way, the School is recommending you for the Certificate or Rating, as opposed to an individual Instructor. This training is not suited for everyone, nor is it required by many 'foreign' pilots who may have substantially more experience or knowledge than a recently minted Private Pilot. The Part 141 school should be a high standard, sucessful school, however, will cost a lot more money as the overhead is considerably more than for a Part 61 school / instructor.

Part 61 training is good when you need to accomplish a number of ratings in a short period of time, or when the pilot already meets most of the Part 61 requirements. An instructor can easily tailor the training to meet specific needs. For example, a friend of mine needs 100 hours next year and has decided to come over and get an FAA Private Multi add-on, Instrument Rating, and Commercial, within 100 hours in a Multi-Engine airplane, while building about 80 hours of cross-country time. When he goes back, he'll have FAA Multi Commercial Instrument, about 1000 hours total time, 100 hours multi, 80 hours cross country, and a JAA (f)ATPL. This would not be possible under Part 141 in this timeframe and would cost considerably more money.