Having a friend or any other means of obtaining free flight time is of course incredibly useful and great fun. BUT remember that the minimum flight times towards the FAA licences are PIC !
Sharing costs in the PPL arena.. read the rules very carefully.
I never turned down a free flight during my training but getting PIC time for free.. tough ! until you have your FAA commercial.
250 hours PIC. OK so ATP (FAA) 1500 hrs PIC ! Getting PIC time in a commercial operation with a wet ink commercial licence only with the most ignorant or most generous insurance company.
I chose the Flight Instructor route. I had no problem getting a CFI job. I got my time (avg 60 hrs. a month and got paid. I got to know people at the GA airport in NJ where I taught. I flew jump planes and did traffic reporting in EWR's airspace (which was "interesting" to say the least.) Then I started flying right seat in a Navajo (Part91) and when the Navajo PIC moved up, I got his seat and his 10 bucks an hour. I never gave up teaching till I had the FAA.ATP.. and often I would run into the 100 hr a month barrier. I built my time very fast. The rest is history! ooo except the part about converting to CAA.!
Maybe this was the case 18 years ago, but is sure is not like this anymore.
CPL ASEL/AMEL requires 250 TOTAL time, of which 100 PIC. see
14CFR61.129 ATPL ASEL/AMEL requires 1500 TOTAL time, of which 250 PIC, or acting PIC. see
14CFR61.159
Hello
i've zero experience n' want to b a commercial airline pilot
got an offer from a relative who's a pilot n' also owns a courrier company..he said i can learn the basic to get PPL w/him n' his friend as apart from being captain they r also instructures
then he'll ask his pilot friends to put me on their flights to gain hours for CPL
after that i'll fly for his courrier to gain 1500 hrs for ATPL
anybody know if its legal to do this...its in Florida btw
he said this way i'll pay for only 15,000 $
want to gain JAR license but cant afford so think will do his way then convert later....any comment would b really appreciated
thx so much
Remember that one of the limitations of a FAA PPL is that you have to pay the pro rata share of the flight. That means that if you are flying flights from your friends, technically, you have to pay atleast the price of the flight divided by the amount of people flying in the plane.
If the people you fly with are instructors, then technically you can log the hours as instruction AND as Pilot in Command once you have a PPL and are rated & current on the plane. However, 250hrs total time, of which 230 dual will definitely raise questions on checkrides and interviews.
The other things is that it will probably be a 135 company, and you don't meet the PIC requirements.
So all in all, this will be tricky, and if legal, borderline. Be careful.
-IBLB-