A little advice please...

[Champagne Anyone?]

Hi folks, I am currently house sitting for Champers so he dosent know I am on here asking this question...


I have recently gained a PPL (2.5 yrs ago) and was wondering what route I should take to obtain a commercial license to enable me to instruct for money? (and may be get involved in light commercial operations in singles or light twins?)

I have asked around the local airfields and all have given some weird answers from dont bother to it will cost you upwards of £65,000 to obtain the required qualifications.


Can anyone help me with a little advice as to what I should be doing, where I should be doing it and the rough costs please? (I have close to 150 hrs total)

I'm only here until next monday so any answers to your questions would have to be made by then.

(I have looked in Lasors but not found a clear cut answer)

I seem to think I need a CPL at least an IMC to begin with and an instructors am I right? Will the implementation of EASA change anything in the near future? (apart from the IMC bit)

Thanks in advance, Champers Dog Sitter.

[Mercenary Pilot]

I have asked around the local airfields and all have given some weird answers from dont bother to it will cost you upwards of £65,000 to obtain the required qualifications.

Well write all them off straight away, obviously ether too lazy to give you the run down or don't know the regulations. Ether way I can guarantee that it will come across in their poor standards of training. Never forget YOU are the customer!

Rant over

In regards to your question. If you are absolutely sure that instructing is all you really want to do (at least for the next 3 years). Then all you really need is:

JAA Class 1 Medical
Commercial Pilots Licence (CPL) Theory
CPL Training and skills test
Instructors Rating training and skills test.

First thing you need to do is get a JAA Class 1 medical examination from the CAA in Gatwick. They are around £400 these days I think.

Next you will need to enrol on a CPL theory course. There aren't that many choices on where to go because most schools only cater for ATPL exams which are pointless if you are 110% sure you only want to instruct and don't want an instrument rating in the next 3 years. They take around 6 months to complete the 9 exams.

As you already have 150 hours, you should be able to go straight in to the CPL course.

After that then its a case of doing the Instructors rating and that's you qualified to teach SE PPL. I think you need a certain amount of instructing experience before you can teach Multi Engine but I could be wrong (and I cant be arsed reading LASORS at 1am)

I would budget for around £15000 - £20000. If you want to do air taxi then you will need to do the ATPL theory and the ME Instrument rating (which is around £15000 - £20000 extra).

[portsharbourflyer]

To do air taxi work (ie: single pilot ops) you do not ATPL theory, you can do air taxi work with just a CPL and IR, therefore you could do CPL theory followed the IR thory exams; however it is just as cheap to do the full 14 ATPL exams from the outset rather than seperate CPL and IR theory.

Most single pilot operators will require 700 hours total time with 40 hours p1 multi IFR time (some have a concession for 400) aswell. Although it is not uncommon for air taxi operators to ask for a 1000 hours total time with 100+ multi p1 time.

[Mercenary Pilot]

The reason I said about the ATPL theory was because otherwise you need to sit another 7 exams to get an IR and you would be severely limiting your employment options if you wanted to fly commercial operations.

(But technically portsharbourflyer's information is spot on.)