This is where you start getting paid to fly.
Your Commercial certificate, hour by hour.
You already fly with precision and on instruments. The Commercial Pilot Certificate is the step that lets you be paid to do it — built on the flight time the industry wants and the sharper, professional-grade flying the checkride demands.
It really comes down to two things: hours in your logbook, and polish in your hands. Here's exactly what you'll build, and roughly the order it comes together.
The path to 250
Less a ladder, more a logbook.
Unlike earlier ratings, the commercial certificate isn't four lessons in a row — it's experience that builds in parallel and converges on one checkride. Four things make it up. None of them is a mystery.
Build the hours
The certificate is built on experience: 250 hours total time, including 100 hours as pilot-in-command and 50 hours of cross-country PIC. This is the single largest piece of the commercial path — and the time the industry wants to see.
100 hrs PIC
50 hrs XC PIC
Fly the long cross-countries
Specific commercial cross-country flights: one of at least 300 nm with landings at three points (a single leg over 250 nm), plus a 2-hour day and a 2-hour night cross-country, each more than 100 nm out. Real navigation, real distance.
Day + night XC
Sharpen the commercial maneuvers
The precision flying the checkride is known for — chandelles, lazy eights, eights-on-pylons, steep spirals, steep turns, and the power-off 180° accuracy landing, plus short- and soft-field work. This is where your stick-and-rudder becomes professional-grade.
Eights-on-pylons
Power-off 180
Log the advanced & instrument time
Beyond raw hours, the certificate calls for focused training: 10 hours in a complex or technically advanced airplane and 10 hours of instrument training — the depth a commercial pilot is expected to have before getting paid.
10 hrs instrument
Checkride · Commercial Pilot Certificate
An oral and flight test to commercial standards. Pass it, and you can legally be paid to fly. This is the certificate that turns flying from something you do into something you're hired for.
Eligible for paid flying
Before you start
What you need to begin — and what we'll be straight with you about.
Ready to fly for a living?
Tell us your current hours and ratings. We'll map your route to 250, lay out the maneuvers and required flights, and walk you through current pricing and time-building options.