Pilot certificates and ratings in order
Seven rungs, each with a minimum age, a prerequisite and a regulation behind it. Most schools sell the rungs. What is worth understanding is the order, because getting it wrong is the most expensive avoidable mistake in a flying career and it usually happens in the first six months.
What order do pilot certificates come in?
Student, private, instrument, commercial, then whichever add-on ratings the plan needs, then flight instructor, then airline transport pilot. Certificates and ratings are different objects: a certificate is a level of privilege, a rating attaches to one and says what you may fly or in what conditions. The instrument rating and the multi-engine class rating both attach; neither is a certificate.
The order is not arbitrary and it is not entirely fixed either. Instrument before commercial is a choice rather than a requirement, and it is the right choice for almost everybody heading toward an airline, because commercial training then happens with a pilot who can already hold altitude and heading without looking outside.
Where people go wrong is at the top and the bottom. At the bottom they buy an expensive airplane for the first phase, which teaches systems management before it teaches flying. At the top they add ratings speculatively, before knowing which of them the career actually needs.
Everything below carries the regulation that sets it, because ages and prerequisites are the two things most often stated wrongly in this industry and both are trivially checkable.
What are the seven rungs?
Each one names the rule that governs it. Ages are minimums for the certificate itself; the aeronautical experience sits in a separate section and is linked from each rating page.
Student pilot certificate — 61.83
From sixteen for anything other than a glider or balloon, and fourteen for those. English proficiency is required. It is not a course and not an examination: it is the document that lets an instructor endorse you to fly alone, and it needs a medical certificate behind it before you can use it.
Private pilot certificate — 61.103
From seventeen. Requires a knowledge test, an instructor endorsement, the aeronautical experience at 61.109 and a practical test. This is the phase where most of the flying is learned, and the one that most rewards flying often. Three prices here: $10,900, then $15,900, then $22,500.
Instrument rating — 61.65
A rating, not a certificate. 61.65(d) asks for fifty cross-country hours flown as pilot in command, ten of those in an airplane; forty hours in actual or simulated instrument conditions, fifteen of them received from an instructor; and an instrument cross-country of 250 nautical miles with an approach at each airport. $11,700 here.
Commercial pilot certificate — 61.123
From eighteen, and a private certificate has to be in hand first. 61.129(a) sets 250 hours of flight time. Inside it: 100 hours flown in powered aircraft; 100 hours as pilot in command; twenty hours of training, of which ten are instrument and ten are in a complex, turbine or technically advanced airplane; and ten hours flown solo or performing the duties of pilot in command.
Additional class and type ratings — 61.63
The multi-engine class rating lives here, and 61.63(c) sets no minimum hour figure for adding a class rating. Ten to fifteen hours is typical in practice. $5,100 here, flown in the Piper Seminole, and it is a rating on your existing certificate rather than a new certificate.
Flight instructor certificate — 61.183
From eighteen. Beneath it sits a commercial certificate or an ATP whose category and class rating matches, an instrument rating where the sought rating calls for one, and a knowledge test covering the fundamentals of instructing. This is the rung where you start being paid to fly instead of paying to.
Airline transport pilot certificate — 61.153
From twenty-three, or from twenty-one where the reduced experience at 61.160 applies. 61.159(a) sets 1,500 hours total time with 500 cross-country, 100 night, 50 in the class of airplane and 75 instrument inside it. Nothing on this site sells this rung; it is earned.
Can you reach an ATP with fewer than 1,500 hours?
Yes, through 14 CFR 61.160, and only through the specific routes it names. Each carries a lower total-time floor in exchange for a qualification, and each still requires 200 hours of cross-country time under 61.160(e) rather than the 500 that 61.159(a)(1) asks.
Military route — 61.160(a)
The lowest floor in the section, for a serving or former United States military pilot able to produce the documentation the paragraph requires.
- Total time750 hours
- Cross-country200 hours under 61.160(e)
- Age21, per 61.153(a)
Bachelor’s degree with an aviation major — 61.160(b)
Requires an institution of higher education with FAA authorisation and sixty semester credit hours of aviation coursework.
- Total time1,000 hours
- Credit hours60 semester hours
- Also needsCommercial with an instrument rating
Associate degree, or a partial bachelor’s — 61.160(c) and (d)
Thirty semester credit hours of aviation coursework at an authorised institution reaches the same floor by either route.
- Total time1,250 hours
- Credit hours30 semester hours
- Route (d)Fewer than 60, at least 30
What the restricted certificate costs you
61.160(g) subjects a certificate obtained under the section to pilot-in-command limitations. It is a real certificate with a real constraint, and the constraint lifts on reaching the full experience.
- LimitationPilot in command, per 61.160(g)
- Unrestricted at1,500 hours — 61.159(a)
- Age unrestricted23 — 61.153(a)
What does each rung cost?
Published figures for every rung this school sells, and an honest blank where it does not. The career track buys the whole ladder up to a flight instructor rating for one number; the individual phases are also sold separately.
Airline Career Track
Every phase from the first logged hour to a flight instructor rating, priced once and fixed at the point of enrolment.
- ✓Five phases under a single number
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓No repricing at a phase boundary
- ✓Part 61 from start to finish
Private Pilot — Comprehensive
Sixty hours in the logbook: fifty-five airborne, five in the box, fifty flown dual, plus ten hours of ground school.
- ✓60 hours logged
- ✓5 simulator sessions
- ✓10 hours of ground school
- ✓Books and materials included
Instrument Rating
Phase two of the career route, and the rating that changes how you fly more than any other single step.
- ✓40 instrument hours under 61.65(d)
- ✓An IFR cross-country of 250 nautical miles
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Multi-Engine Add-On
The class rating that opens twin-engine flying, and later the ability to instruct in one.
- ✓No hour floor under 61.63(c)(3)
- ✓Ten to fifteen hours is typical
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
What can be verified about how this ladder is taught?
The ages and hour figures above are all in public regulation and can be read in ten minutes. What follows is the part that is about this school rather than about the rules.
Airframe types on the ramp, owned rather than brokered
Cessna 162 Skycatcher, Piper Warrior, Piper Arrow II, Diamond DA20, Cirrus SR22 Turbo and Piper Seminole. The airplanes belong to the operation, so the maintenance calendar is ours and not a lessor’s.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Instructors working here
Each carries a commercial certificate or an ATP beneath, an instructor certificate above it, and a medical in date. You are matched with one of them, and you may ask for another if the fit is wrong.
14 CFR 61.183 · 61.23 · 61.195Training-capable days measured across twelve months at this field
Counted from NOAA ASOS observations for the year ending 1 August 2026, admitting a day only where the ceiling held at 3,000 feet with five statute miles of visibility across four qualifying daylight hours.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetA session in the full-motion simulator
Two of those sessions sit inside the Standard and the Premium private pilot programs and five inside the Comprehensive, and weather never takes one away.
Published, not quoted on requestProgram prices withheld until you enquire
None. Every program figure is printed on the site, nothing is offered as a spread, and the price you sign for is the one you read.
Stated rather than impliedShould you do the instrument rating before the commercial?
For an airline career, yes, almost always. The commercial certificate demands precise aircraft control and a great deal of cross-country time, and both of those are considerably easier for a pilot who has already learned to fly accurately on instruments.
There is a second reason and it is financial. Much of the flying that builds toward 61.129(a) can be flown usefully once you hold an instrument rating and much less usefully before it, so the sequence lets one set of hours do two jobs. Reversing it tends to produce hours that count toward a certificate and teach nothing new.
The exception is somebody who is not heading for an airline. A pilot who wants a commercial certificate for banner towing or survey work in visual conditions may reasonably leave the instrument rating until later or skip it, though 61.183 will want it back if they eventually go for the corresponding instructor rating.
Two more positions, since this page is taking them. Do not buy the multi-engine rating early. It is $5,100 and it is worth exactly nothing until you are close to needing it, because the currency and the skill both decay. And do not buy a glass-cockpit private pilot program before you have soloed: the Premium program at $22,500 is honestly priced and it is the wrong first airplane for most people.
The one place we would spend money early rather than late is the medical. Of everything on this ladder it is the single item capable of stopping the plan outright, and testing it costs less than one flying hour.
What this page does not promise
Reaching a rung is not the same as being employed after it. Nothing here is a guarantee of an interview, a job or a salary, no airline is named anywhere on this site, and there is no cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring arrangement between this school and any carrier. The ages and hour figures are the regulations current text and regulations move.
Airline Pilot Flight School trains under part 61 of 14 CFR, at Van Nuys Airport. It is not an airline, it is not owned by one, and no carrier holds a cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring arrangement with us. We do not guarantee an interview, a job or a salary.
No pass rate, no graduate count and no rating of any kind is published on this site. The operation is new, any such figure would come from a sample too small to mean anything, and inventing one is the easiest lie available in this industry. What is published instead is the syllabus, the price, the hours and the regulation behind each requirement.
Questions about the order
Student, private, instrument rating, commercial, any additional class ratings, flight instructor, then airline transport pilot. The instrument rating and the multi-engine rating are ratings that attach to a certificate rather than certificates in their own right, which is the distinction most often blurred.
A student pilot certificate is sixteen under 14 CFR 61.83. A private certificate is seventeen under 61.103. Both a commercial certificate at 61.123 and a flight instructor certificate at 61.183 are eighteen. An airline transport pilot certificate is twenty-three under 61.153, dropping to twenty-one where the reduced experience route at 61.160 applies.
Yes. Under 14 CFR 61.123 a commercial applicant holds a private pilot certificate issued under part 61 already, or else meets 61.73 instead. There is no route that skips the private certificate and arrives directly at a commercial one.
Not by 61.123, and it is still the right order for almost anybody heading toward an airline. Commercial training demands precision and a lot of cross-country flying, both of which come easier to a pilot who already flies accurately on instruments, and the hours then serve two purposes rather than one.
A minimum of 250 hours of flight time, set by 14 CFR 61.129(a) where the rating sought is airplane single-engine. Inside it: 100 hours flown in powered aircraft; 100 hours as pilot in command; twenty hours of training, ten of them instrument and ten in a complex, turbine or technically advanced airplane; and ten hours flown solo or performing the duties of pilot in command.
A certificate is a level of privilege and a rating is an attachment to it describing what you may fly or in what conditions. Private and commercial are certificates. Instrument and multi-engine are ratings. You do not hold a multi-engine certificate, and a school offering one is being loose with language.
Close to when you need it, not before. It costs $5,100 here, it usually takes ten to fifteen hours because 14 CFR 61.63(c)(3) sets no hour floor for adding a class rating, and both the currency and the handling decay if the rating sits unused. Buying it early is a common and avoidable waste.
Through 14 CFR 61.160(b), with a bachelor’s degree carrying an aviation major from an institution of higher education with FAA authorisation and sixty semester credit hours of aviation coursework. The military route at 61.160(a) reaches 750 hours, and two routes at 61.160(c) and (d) reach 1,250.
The flight instructor certificate. Everything before it is bought and everything after it is generally earned, which is why 61.183 is the most consequential rung on the ladder for anybody funding this themselves. It is also the rung where you learn the most about flying, for reasons every instructor will tell you about.
At the very beginning, before any of it. Solo flight needs a third-class certificate at minimum, by 14 CFR 61.23(a)(3); commercial privileges want second class or better; airline transport pilot command privileges want first. Nothing else in this sequence can end the plan outright, and nothing else is so cheap to test.
The first rung costs $229 and tells you whether the other six are for you
A student pilot certificate is paperwork and a private certificate is months of work. Between them sits one hour in an airplane with you flying it, which is the only part of this ladder you can test before committing to any of it.
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 →