Get Your Medical Before You Enroll
Nothing in a training syllabus asks for a medical certificate until you are ready to fly solo, so the question drifts. That drift is the single most expensive habit in this subject, because the medical is the one item on the whole list that can close a route outright and it costs a small fraction of any phase. This page argues for a specific order and shows the rules behind it.
Should You Get An FAA Medical Certificate Before Starting Flight Training?
Yes, and before spending anything substantial. The rule does not force it: 61.23(a)(3)(i) attaches the requirement to exercising the privileges of a student pilot certificate, which in practice means acting as pilot in command, so a first lesson with an instructor commanding the aircraft does not need one. But the rule and the sensible order are different things, and the sensible order puts the examination first.
The argument is entirely about the shape of the risk. Every other input to this decision is bounded and knowable in advance. The program price is printed and fixed at enrolment. The hour requirements are federal. Your calendar is testable for free. The medical is the only item where the answer is unknown, the downside is total, and the cost of finding out is small.
Nothing in a syllabus forces the question early, so it drifts. Four months and several thousand dollars later it stops drifting, and by then the decision it should have informed has already been made. That is the pattern, it is common, and it is entirely avoidable by moving one appointment to the front of the queue.
What makes it worse is that a deferral is not a fast process. A deferral is not a denial. It means the application has gone to the FAA rather than being issued in the room, and what follows is a request for records and a decision taken somewhere else. The unit of delay is months. Discovering that in month one of a plan is inconvenient. Discovering it in month eight, with borrowing already drawn, is something else.
A position, and we will hold it even where it costs us an enrolment. Sitting the examination before enrolling turns an unbounded risk into a bounded one, and it does so at a cost that is a small fraction of any single training phase. If that examination produces an answer you did not want, you have lost an appointment rather than a year.
What Order Should You Do These Things In?
Five moves. Each of the first three is cheap enough to abandon at, and the ordering exists so that the expensive commitments come last rather than first.
Sit The Medical Examination
First, before anything else, and with an Aviation Medical Examiner because nobody else can issue one. Which class to sit depends on whether a professional route is in view, and that is worth settling before you book rather than in the waiting room.
Sort Out TSA Approval If It Applies To You
If you are not a United States citizen, flight training triggers a separate approval process that runs on its own timetable and has nothing to do with the medical. Starting it early is free and starting it late is not. There is a page on this site that sets out what it involves.
Fly One Assessment Flight
A genuine lesson with the controls in your hands. It answers the only question a page cannot: whether you enjoy this. An hour of instruction received is logged whatever you decide afterwards, and $229 is deducted from a program you enrol in within a day.
Test Your Calendar For A Month
Try to hold two flying slots a week for four weeks, booking nothing and spending nothing. Whether you manage it predicts the eventual cost of your certificate more reliably than anything else you can measure in advance.
Then Choose And Enrol
Only at this point do you have all four inputs: a medical answer, an approval answer if you needed one, an honest reaction to flying, and real data about your own week. Choosing a program before this is choosing against assumptions.
When Does The Regulation Actually Require A Medical Certificate?
The requirement at 61.23(a)(3)(i) attaches to exercising the privileges of a student pilot certificate, which in practice means acting as pilot in command. While an instructor is legally commanding the aircraft, that obligation rests on the instructor. So the certificate has to be in your hand before you fly solo, and not before your first lesson. That is the legal position, and it is also why the appointment gets postponed.
Higher up, the classes change. 61.23(a)(2)(ii) requires at least a second class certificate for exercising the privileges of a commercial pilot certificate in an aircraft other than a balloon or glider. 61.23(a)(1)(i) requires a first class certificate for the pilot-in-command privileges of an airline transport pilot certificate. A route that ends at an airline seat therefore has a first-class question in it, and the only sensible time to ask that question is at the beginning.
One continuing obligation is worth knowing about now rather than later. Acting as pilot in command, or as a required crewmember, is prohibited by 61.53 while you know or have reason to know of a medical condition that would stop you meeting the requirements for the certificate that operation needs, or while taking medication or treatment with that effect. That duty is continuous and it does not pause between renewals.
Which Class Of Medical Certificate Should You Sit First?
Three classes, three subparts, and one decision that follows almost entirely from what you eventually want to do. Getting it right at the first appointment saves an appointment later.
If An Airline Route Is In View, Sit First Class
One appointment then establishes whether the top of the ladder is medically open to you, which is the whole point of doing this early. The examination is the same examination; what first class adds for a healthy applicant is the electrocardiogram required by 67.111(b) at the first application after the thirty-fifth birthday and annually after the fortieth.
Nothing is wasted if you never use the top tier. Under the duration table at 61.23(d)(1), that single certificate supports commercial privileges for twelve calendar months at any age, and private, student and instructor privileges for sixty calendar months where you were under forty at the examination or twenty-four where you were forty or older.
- Governed by subpart B of part 67, sections 67.101 to 67.115
- Adds a heart tracing from the 35th birthday under 67.111(b)
- Steps down through commercial and private privileges
- Answers the ceiling question in one appointment
If Being Paid To Fly Is The Destination, Second Class Is The Floor
61.23(a)(2)(ii) makes a second class certificate the requirement for commercial pilot privileges in an aircraft other than a balloon or glider, and 61.23(d)(2)(i) gives those privileges twelve calendar months at any age. The standards in subpart C mirror subpart B closely, with one substantive exception.
That exception is the cardiovascular section. 67.211 lists six conditions and stops; there is no electrocardiogram paragraph in it at any age. If a career that stops short of airline transport command privileges is what you want, second class is what the rule asks for and it asks for less.
- Governed by subpart C of part 67, sections 67.201 to 67.215
- No electrocardiogram requirement anywhere in 67.211
- 12 calendar months of commercial privileges at any age
- The eye standard at 67.203 is identical to the first class one
If You Only Want To Fly For Yourself, Third Class Is The Requirement
61.23(a)(3) sets at least a third class certificate as the requirement for private, recreational and student pilot privileges, for flight instructor duties where you are pilot in command or a required crewmember, and for taking a practical test, except where you are operating within the conditions and limitations at 61.113(i).
The third class eye standard at 67.303 is the one place where part 67 genuinely relaxes. Distant acuity is 20/40 rather than 20/20, and near vision is 20/40 at sixteen inches with no second distance and no age condition anywhere in the section. It has four paragraphs where 67.103 and 67.203 have six.
- Governed by subpart D of part 67
- 20/40 at distance rather than 20/20
- No intermediate near check at thirty-two inches, at any age
- Supports private, recreational and student privileges
What Does It Cost To Leave The Medical Until Later?
Three things, in rising order of seriousness. The first is scheduling: a deferral stops you flying solo, and a syllabus that has reached the solo phase and cannot proceed stalls in place while currency decays. Time already flown starts to lose value, and rebuilding it costs hours.
The second is money that has already gone out. Training spend is not recoverable in the way a deposit is, and a plan that ends at month eight has spent eight months of it. If any of that was borrowed, interest continues on a plan that has stopped.
The third is the one nobody plans for, and it is why this page was written. A professional route that turns out to be medically closed is closed whether you discover it in week one or in year two, and the only thing that changes between those two discoveries is how much has been spent in the meantime. That is a pure timing cost. It buys nothing.
Against those three sits one appointment with an Aviation Medical Examiner. We are not going to tell you what that appointment will produce, because we cannot know and anybody who claims to is guessing. What we will say is that finding out early is cheaper than finding out late in every single scenario, including the ones where the news is good.
What Does The Training Cost Once The Medical Is Settled?
Three shapes of a private pilot certificate, each fixed at the point you enrol. The medical examination is not among these figures and never reaches an invoice from us; it is settled directly with the examiner.
Standard Private Pilot
Built to the hour requirement in the regulation and no further, for somebody who can fly several times a week.
- ✓40 hours logged, 38 of them in a single-engine airplane
- ✓30 hours flown dual, 3 hours of ground school
- ✓2 sessions in the Redbird MCX
- ✓Books and materials included
Comprehensive Private Pilot
Sixty hours, which is where most people who fly once or twice a week actually finish.
- ✓60 hours logged, 55 of them in a single-engine airplane
- ✓50 hours flown dual, 10 hours of ground school
- ✓5 sessions in the Redbird MCX
- ✓Books and materials included
Premium Private Pilot
The same certificate, flown throughout in the Cirrus SR22 Turbo on a glass panel with a whole-airframe parachute.
- ✓40 logged hours, every one in the Cirrus SR22 Turbo
- ✓30 hours flown dual, 3 hours of ground school
- ✓2 sessions in the Redbird MCX
- ✓Books and materials included
Six Things Worth Doing Before The Appointment
None of this is medical advice. All of it reduces the chance of a delay that has nothing to do with your health.
Write Down Your History With Dates
Diagnoses, medications current and stopped, surgeries, and anything a physician recorded that you would not think of as aviation-related. History produces far more deferrals than present health does.
Book With An Aviation Medical Examiner
Your own physician cannot issue an airman medical certificate however well they know you. Only an examiner designated for the purpose can conduct the examination and issue what comes out of it.
Decide The Class Before You Book
Sitting first class answers the ceiling question in one appointment and steps down afterwards. Sitting third class answers a smaller question. Changing your mind afterwards means a second appointment.
Take The Glasses You Actually Wear
From fifty, 67.103(b) and 67.203(b) run the near check at sixteen inches and at thirty-two. A prescription tuned for reading can clear one distance and not the other.
Mind The Sixty-Day Window
Where a heart tracing is required, 67.111(c) will not accept one dated more than sixty days before the application it accompanies. Sequence the tracing and the appointment accordingly.
Do Not Borrow Before You Know
Money committed before the medical is money committed against an assumption. Every financing conversation reads differently once the certificate is in hand, and none of them reads worse.
Why Does This Matter More If You Are Borrowing?
Because a loan does not care whether you are flying. It is drawn against a plan, it accrues from the date it is drawn, and it continues if the plan stops. Borrowing before the medical question is settled means borrowing against an assumption about the one input you have not tested, which is the reverse of how anybody would structure any other purchase of this size.
The sequencing also improves the borrowing itself. A person who knows what class of certificate they hold knows which route is actually open to them, which phases they are buying and over what period, and can therefore size the borrowing against a plan rather than an aspiration. That is a better conversation with any lender, and it is a better conversation with a household.
There is a version of this where the school benefits from the other order, and it is worth naming. A provider that takes an enrolment before the medical is settled has the money either way. We would rather have the enrolment that survives, and we would rather tell you this on a page you can read at midnight than after a deposit has cleared.
What Are The Possible Outcomes, And What Does Each Mean?
Understanding the middle one is the whole argument for doing this early, because it is the outcome that costs time rather than answering a question.
Issued In The Room
The common outcome for a healthy applicant with an uncomplicated history. You leave holding a certificate, and every other decision on this page can now be made against a known input rather than an unknown one.
- What ChangesNothing, and that is the point
- Time CostOne appointment
- Next StepFly an assessment flight
Deferred To The FAA
The examiner has sent the application on rather than issuing. What follows is a request for records and a decision taken elsewhere, and the unit of delay is months rather than days. This is the outcome that punishes late sequencing.
- What It Is NotA denial
- Time CostMeasured in months
- Next StepWhatever the examiner asks for
The Standard Is Not Met
67.115 and 67.215 both point at 67.401, where an Authorization for Special Issuance may be granted for a stated period at the discretion of the Federal Air Surgeon, or a Statement of Demonstrated Ability where a condition is static or nonprogressive.
- Route14 CFR 67.401
- Decided ByThe Federal Air Surgeon
- Predictable By UsNo
Can A New Student Rely On BasicMed Instead?
Not at the start, and the reason is a single sub-paragraph. The route at 14 CFR 61.113(i) lets a private pilot fly without a part 67 certificate given a valid U.S. driver’s licence and everything 61.23(c)(3) requires. But 61.23(c)(3)(i)(B) requires that a medical certificate issued under part 67 was held by you at some time after 14 July 2006. Somebody who has never held one has no way in.
That single condition converts BasicMed from an alternative into a continuation. It is a route for people who already went through part 67 once and now want a lighter recurring obligation. It is not a route around the first examination, and any plan that treats it as one is built on a reading of 61.113(i) that stops before 61.23(c)(3).
It is bounded, too, in ways worth knowing before anybody counts on it. 61.113(i) permits an aircraft authorised to carry seven occupants at most and not exceeding 12,500 pounds maximum takeoff weight, flown with six passengers at most, at or below 18,000 feet mean sea level, at or below 250 knots indicated, and inside the country unless the state flown in authorises otherwise. 61.23(c)(1) also stops the route short of commercial and airline transport privileges entirely.
The detail of how special issuance works under BasicMed sits on the first and second class pages on this site, including one point that has been published incorrectly elsewhere and that people have planned around. If BasicMed is likely to be part of your future, read that section rather than a summary of it.
Medical First, Or Enrol First?
Both happen. One of them puts the unbounded risk at the front where it is cheap to resolve, and the other puts it in the middle where it is not.
Sit The Examination, Then Enrol
The unknown input is resolved before any large commitment is made. If the answer is unwelcome, what has been lost is one appointment rather than months of spend and possibly drawn borrowing.
Best foreverybody, and particularly anybody borrowing or aiming at a professional route
- Unknown ResolvedBefore you spend
- Worst CaseOne appointment
- Effect On BorrowingSized against a known plan
- Effect On TempoNone; solo is never blocked
Enrol, Then Sort It Out
Legal, common, and the reason this page exists. The requirement does not bite until solo, so the question is easy to defer, and deferring it means the answer arrives after the money has gone.
Best fornobody, on reflection, though it is what most people drift into
- Unknown ResolvedAround the solo phase
- Worst CaseMonths of spend against a closed route
- Effect On BorrowingDrawn against an assumption
- Effect On TempoA deferral stalls the syllabus
Side By Side
| Medical First | Enrol First | |
|---|---|---|
| When The Answer Arrives | Before any spend | Around the solo phase |
| Cost If The News Is Bad | One appointment | Everything spent so far |
| Effect On A Loan | Sized correctly | Accrues against a stalled plan |
| Effect On The Syllabus | None | Stalls at solo, currency decays |
| Legal Either Way | Yes | Yes |
What Can You Verify About This School Before Any Of This?
Five statements about the operation, each independently checkable. Nothing on this site is a rating, a quoted customer or a graduate count, and no claim is made anywhere about medical outcomes.
Airframe Types Owned Rather Than Leased In
You will fly Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. They belong to the operation rather than to a lessor, so the maintenance calendar is set here.
Maintained under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors On The Roster
Each of them carries a commercial certificate or an airline transport pilot certificate underneath, an instructor certificate on top, and a medical in date. Your instructor holds pilot-in-command authority for every lesson you fly.
14 CFR 61.23 · 61.183 · 61.195Days A Year The Weather Allows Training
Counted from NOAA ASOS observations across the twelve months to 1 August 2026, admitting a day only where the ceiling held at 3,000 feet with five miles of visibility, for four qualifying daylight hours. Method and limitations are published beside the figure.
NOAA ASOS observations via the Iowa Environmental MesonetOne Session In The Full-Motion Simulator
A Redbird MCX, full-motion and fully enclosed. Two of those sessions are inside the Standard and the Premium private pilot programs, five inside the Comprehensive, and no session is ever lost to weather. It is very good for procedures and instrument scan and poor for landings, which we would rather say than sell it as a substitute for the airplane.
Printed on the site, not quoted on requestProgram Prices Hidden Behind An Enquiry Form
Nothing is withheld. Every program figure is on the page, no figure is offered as a spread, and what you sign for is what you read.
Every figure is on the page you are readingQuestions About Getting The Medical First
No. 61.23(a)(3)(i) attaches the requirement to exercising the privileges of a student pilot certificate, which means acting as pilot in command, and on an instructional flight the instructor holds that authority. You need the certificate in hand before you fly solo. Sitting the examination earlier than that is a recommendation about risk rather than a legal requirement.
Before solo flight, under 61.23(a)(3)(i). Higher up the ladder the class rises: at least a second class certificate for commercial pilot privileges in an aircraft other than a balloon or glider under 61.23(a)(2)(ii), and a first class certificate for the pilot-in-command privileges of an airline transport pilot certificate under 61.23(a)(1)(i).
First class if an airline route is genuinely in view, because one appointment then settles the ceiling and the certificate steps down through the lower privileges afterwards. Second class if being paid to fly is the destination and airline transport command privileges are not. Third class if you intend to fly for your own purposes only.
A deferral means the application has gone on to the FAA instead of being issued in the room, and a request for records and a decision elsewhere follow. It is not a denial. The unit of delay is months rather than days, which is exactly why discovering it in week one costs so much less than discovering it in month eight.
No. The examination has to be conducted by an Aviation Medical Examiner, and only an examiner can issue what comes out of it. Your own physician is a useful source for the records and dates you bring to the appointment, and cannot substitute for the examiner in any other respect.
Not where an FAA medical certificate has never been held by you. 61.23(c)(3)(i)(B) requires that a certificate issued under part 67 was held at some time after 14 July 2006, so the route at 61.113(i) is a continuation for people who went through part 67 once and not a way around a first examination.
It runs on calendar months from the date of examination under the table at 61.23(d), and the period depends on the class and on your age at that examination. For private and student privileges it is sixty calendar months where you were under forty and twenty-four where you were forty or older, so most students are covered comfortably through training.
Put it in front of an Aviation Medical Examiner before applying rather than afterwards, because an examiner can tell you what evidence is likely to be wanted. We cannot tell you what such a conversation will produce and we will not imply a particular result from it. What we can say is that having the conversation early costs less than having it late.
After. A loan accrues from the date it is drawn and continues if the plan stops, so borrowing before the medical question is settled is borrowing against the one input you have not tested. Money committed after the certificate is in hand can be sized against a route you know is open.
No, and this is worth knowing from the beginning. 61.53 forbids you from acting as pilot in command, or as a required crewmember, while you know or have reason to know of a medical condition that would stop you meeting the requirements for the certificate that operation needs, or while taking medication or treatment with that effect. The duty runs continuously, not just at renewal.
What This Page Does Not Do
This page argues about sequencing, not about medicine. It cannot tell you whether a certificate will be issued to you, and it does not try. That question belongs to an Aviation Medical Examiner who has examined you and read your history, and to nobody else. Airline Pilot Flight School neither issues medical certificates nor influences their issue, and no conversation, preparation or consultation offered by anybody here changes an outcome determined under part 67.
Every regulation cited above was read at source before publication and checked against a second independent copy of the same text. Airline Pilot Flight School trains under part 61 of 14 CFR at Van Nuys Airport; it is not an airline, is not owned by one, and holds no cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring arrangement with any carrier. No employment or salary outcome is promised anywhere on this site, and no pass rate or graduate count is published, because this operation is new and any such figure would rest on a sample too small to carry meaning.
Come And Fly An Hour While The Paperwork Runs
An assessment flight is an ordinary first lesson rather than a sightseeing trip: you do the flying, an hour of instruction received goes into your logbook, and $229 is deducted from any program you enrol in within a day.
An assessment flight does not need a medical certificate, because the instructor holds pilot-in-command authority for it. So the two questions can be answered in parallel: book the examination, then come and find out whether you actually enjoy this.
One Hour, Hands On The Controls
Your instructor holds pilot-in-command authority for the flight and will take the airplane where that is sensible, but the flying itself is yours.
Deducted If You Enrol
Enrol within a day of landing and every dollar of the $229 is taken off the program. Decline, and you still keep an hour of logged instruction.
A Straight Conversation Afterwards
Bring the arithmetic at the top of this page and somebody here will work through it beside you, including the version where the sensible answer is not yet.
Book The Examination This Week, Not Next Quarter
It is the one item on the list that can close a route outright, it costs a small fraction of any training phase, and everything else on the plan reads differently once it is settled. Then come and fly an hour.
Keep Reading
Fly The Aeroplane Once, Then Decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →