You needed visas to enter the US well before 9/11. And the visa waiver program was always restricted to B-1/2 visas. Sure, they may have become stricter, but fundamentally 9/11 didn't change all that much as far as visas is concerned.

What did change was the whole TSA thing. With fingerprinting and everything. But that's not the discussion here. In fact, the flight school concerned clearly states that you have to do the TSA.

Incorrect, prior to 9-11 and patriot act there were no restrictions on people that qualified for a standard tourists visa walking into any flight school with an ID from there home country and training for and receiving a PPL, post 9-11 when the Feds realized how the hijackers had got there training new laws were put in place that put rules on both the trainee and flight schools. Just try and get a FAA DE to enter the approvals to take a checkride into the FAA online system without him/her checking for the correct school and visa paperwork and see how far you get.

I'm not sure those who are being totally dogmatic on this issue are correct. I was told something different by a flying club in the US, and it made sense to me. If you are in the US for another purpose (eg business or visiting family), then without a visa (but with TSA approval) you can do some training while you are there as long as it doesn't exceed a certain number of hours per week. I don't remember what the number is (15 rings a bell but don't quote me). The key is that you are not there solely for the purpose of training, and that the training is incidental to the purpose of your visit.


Anyhow in 2012/13, over a few trips to visit family I accumulated enough hours to get an FAA PPL, and had no trouble with the IACRA system or getting the FAA examiner lined up. Your experience may differ of course, etc etc!


I think it is in reality a bit of a grey area. I would say that obvious abuses are likely to get you in trouble, and there may well be a distinction between a flying school offering a PPL course vs a flying club where you make a private arrangement with a flying instructor to get yourself up to the required standard.

Olddognew has it exactly right. It istrue to say that if you enrol in a formal course as a student then an m1 isrequired. That is not the same as needing an m1 for training at all. I did my private on the waiver and my cpl on a b1. Just make sure you have all your tsa stuff done, you wont get started without it (assuming first faa licence). Everyone is rightfully diligent about tsa, hardly anyone cares about visa status when yoou go for training, unless you are on a formal course.

My DPE told me it is not his job to check immigration requirements, and he never did.
Our school did, on the last day it was open, get a visit from TSA and CBP checking passports and visas. And I can 110% tell you, anyone found there doing flight training without a visa would have been in trouble.

So: No, you probably won't get caught but Yes, it is illegal.
This "incidental to visit" has been discussed ad nauseam. TSA views, that if you get flight training with intent to get an initial FAA certificate or a rating, it is flight training and thus you are required to have the correct visa for it.
If you want to risk it, go ahead. I'd guess 99% of people who do that, get away with it just fine. The IACRA etc has no clue about your immigration status, and it seems TSA doesn't routinely check it either, even though they say they do.

The M1 Visa is a vocational training visa.

The Part 91 training organisation that I use in the US (where I am non-resident) have been through many CBP and TSA audits of their foreign clients, none of whom are under the M1 program with no problems whatsoever. They follow the TSA procedures rigourously.

The argument that seems to be accepted is that a Part 91 PPL and IR for their clients is recreational and not vocational. They do not offer a Part 91 or Part 141 pathway of PPL/IR/MEL/CPL/CFI/ATP which would make their training vocational rather than recreational.

I know that this is an anecdotal recounting of a single data point. The conclusion that I have drawn could also be incorrect.