Second class medical certificate
Being paid to fly is what a commercial certificate permits, and a second class medical is what makes that permission legal. It is the certificate most working pilots actually renew, it lasts twelve calendar months at any age, and it does not ask for the heart tracing that first class does.
What is a second class medical certificate?
It is the middle class of FAA airman medical certificate, and 14 CFR 61.23(a)(2)(ii) makes it the floor for exercising commercial pilot privileges in an airplane. In practice it is the certificate that turns flying from a hobby into an income. 61.23(d) gives those privileges twelve calendar months, and the figure does not move with age.
Almost everything in the standards matches first class exactly. Subpart C of part 67 mirrors subpart B section for section: 67.203 for the eye, 67.205 for ear, nose, throat and equilibrium, 67.207 for mental, 67.209 for neurologic, 67.211 for cardiovascular, 67.213 for the general condition and 67.215 for discretionary issuance. The vision paragraph is word for word the same as the first-class one.
One difference is worth the whole page. 67.111(b) obliges a first-class applicant to produce an electrocardiogram at the first application after thirty-five and every year after forty. Nothing of the kind appears in 67.211, which lists six cardiovascular conditions and stops there. For an applicant in their forties or fifties that is the practical distinction between the two examinations.
A word on how these certificates stack, because it confuses people constantly. Classes are not separate documents. Sit the first-class examination and you receive one certificate that supports first-class privileges for a while, then commercial privileges for longer, then private privileges for longer still. Sitting second class buys you the middle and lower tiers only.
First class or second class — which should you sit?
Sit first class if an airline is the destination, and sit it early. Sit second class if being paid to fly is the destination and an airline transport pilot certificate is not, or if you already know a first-class item would be a problem and you want to establish what you can hold.
The case for taking the first-class examination anyway
It answers a bigger question for the same appointment. The physical is the same physical; the additional items are the heart tracing above certain ages and nothing else that a healthy applicant would notice. Walk out holding a first-class certificate and you have proved the ceiling of your career is not medical.
It also does not waste the lower tiers. That single certificate carries on supporting commercial privileges for the full twelve months and private privileges far longer, so nothing is spent twice.
- Same appointment, larger answer
- Steps down through commercial and private privileges
- Establishes the ceiling before you spend on training
The case for second class
Some careers genuinely stop below an airline. Flight instruction, banner work, aerial survey, pipeline patrol, jump flying and charter under certain rules are all commercial pilot activities, and none of them requires an airline transport pilot certificate. A second class covers every one of them.
There is also a narrower case. If you already know that something in your history is going to be difficult, establishing what you can hold at second class is useful information, and it does not foreclose applying for first class later.
- Covers instruction, survey, patrol and charter work
- Twelve months at any age, with no age-related halving
- No electrocardiogram
What neither certificate does
Neither one is a licence to fly and neither is a certificate of competence. A medical certificate says you meet a physical standard on a given day. Everything about whether you can actually operate an airplane lives in part 61 and is decided by an instructor and an examiner, not by a physician.
What is the difference between a first and second class medical?
Four differences, of which only two will change anybody’s decision. Most people get the vision standards wrong: they are identical.
The heart tracing
The real difference. At first class an electrocardiogram is due once you have passed thirty-five, and then yearly once you have passed forty. Second class asks for none, at any age.
- First classECG from 35, then yearly from 40
- Second classNone
- Rules67.111(b) · 67.211
How long it holds
First class halves at forty for airline transport pilot privileges. Second class does not move at all for commercial privileges.
- First class, ATP12 months, or 6 from age 40
- Second class, commercial12 months, any age
- Rule14 CFR 61.23(d)
Vision
Identical. 67.203 reproduces 67.103, including the intermediate near check at thirty-two inches from age fifty. Only the third-class standard at 67.303 is easier.
- Distance20/20 each eye, both classes
- Near20/40 at sixteen inches
- From fiftyAlso at thirty-two inches
What it lets you do
Second class covers being paid to fly. First class is required only for the command privileges of an airline transport pilot certificate.
- Second classCommercial privileges — 61.23(a)(2)
- First classATP command — 61.23(a)(1)
- Third classPrivate and student privileges
What does commercial training cost here?
$89,000 covers the whole route from no logged time to a commercial certificate with a flight instructor rating. If you already hold a private certificate, the phases are sold separately and priced individually, and nothing is repriced at a boundary.
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 is verifiable about this operation?
This site carries no reviews, no rating and no quoted customers, because the school is new and each of those would have to be invented. These five are checkable instead.
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 impliedWhen should you sit it?
Before you pay for training, not after. That is true of any class of medical certificate and it is the single most useful sentence on this page. The examination is inexpensive relative to every other number on this site, and it is the only one that can render the rest of them pointless.
The failure mode is easy to describe. Somebody funds a private certificate, enjoys it, decides to go professional, and discovers at that point that a condition recorded years ago makes a second-class certificate difficult. Nothing about that discovery gets easier by having been postponed, and by then the money is spent.
There is a second reason, less obvious. Special issuance under 14 CFR 67.401 takes time, sometimes a lot of it. Begin it at the start of training and it runs alongside your flying, instead of halting everything on the day a certificate becomes the thing standing between you and being paid.
A position, since these pages take one. Anybody planning to be paid for flying should sit the first-class examination first, even where second class is all their intended work requires. The extra items are trivial for a healthy applicant, the certificate steps down through the lower privileges anyway, and the information you get back is worth more than the difference.
The one exception is somebody who already knows a first-class item will be a problem and needs to establish a floor. Talk to an Aviation Medical Examiner about the order in that case, not to us.
What this page is not
This page describes 14 CFR part 67 subpart C and 14 CFR 61.23 as they currently read. It is not medical advice, it is not a prediction about your application, and only an Aviation Medical Examiner acting under FAA authority can issue or refuse a certificate. Regulations change and this page will not always be the first thing to change with them.
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.
Second class medical questions
Exercise commercial pilot privileges in an airplane, which is what being paid to fly requires. 14 CFR 61.23(a)(2)(ii) sets it as the floor for that. It covers flight instruction, aerial survey, pipeline patrol, banner work, jump flying and charter operations that do not require an airline transport pilot certificate.
14 CFR 61.23(d) gives commercial privileges twelve calendar months, and no age changes that. Nothing halves at forty, which is where it parts company with a first-class certificate. Once those twelve months run out the same document keeps supporting private and student privileges for sixty months, or twenty-four if you were forty or over at the examination.
No. 14 CFR 67.211 lists six cardiovascular conditions that disqualify and contains no electrocardiogram requirement of any kind. The requirement at 67.111(b), which applies at the first application after thirty-five and yearly after forty, belongs to the first-class standard alone.
They are not. 14 CFR 67.203 reproduces the first-class eye standard exactly: 20/20 at distance in each eye separately, 20/40 near at sixteen inches, and from age fifty the near check run at sixteen inches and again at thirty-two. Only the third-class standard at 67.303 is more forgiving, at 20/40 distance and no intermediate check.
You do not upgrade a certificate; you sit the higher examination and are issued a new one. Nothing about holding a second class prevents that, and the physical is largely the same appointment with the electrocardiogram added above the relevant ages. Plenty of pilots move up when their career does.
It depends on what they are doing. A flight instructor acting as pilot in command or as a required crew member needs at least a third class under 14 CFR 61.23(a)(3). Instructing for compensation is commercial activity. Behind the instructor certificate, everybody on this staff also carries a commercial or an ATP, plus a medical in date.
At least a third class. Solo flight is exercised under student pilot privileges, and a medical is required for those by 14 CFR 61.23(a)(3). That is one reason to sort the medical out early: it is a hard gate roughly a third of the way through a private pilot course, not a formality at the end.
It steps down. After twelve calendar months it no longer supports commercial privileges, but under 14 CFR 61.23(d) the same certificate continues to support private, recreational, student and flight instructor privileges out to sixty calendar months, or twenty-four if you were forty or above on the day of the examination.
No. You pay an Aviation Medical Examiner directly, we neither set nor bill that fee, and no figure for it is published on this site. Written test fees and the examiner fee for a checkride work the same way: named as costs you will meet, never priced by us.
Pay an Aviation Medical Examiner for a consultation first, ahead of any application. A deferral costs months and a denial is worse: under 14 CFR 61.23(c)(3) an application completed and denied also closes the driver’s-licence route in part 68. Going in prepared is worth considerably more than going in hopeful.
Where to go next
What the certificate unlocks
Commercial pilot licenseCertified flight instructorPilot certificates and ratings in orderFind out what you can hold before you find out what it costs
A medical examination settles the only question in this plan that training cannot solve. Book it this month. Book an hour in an airplane in the same fortnight and you will know most of what you need to know.
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 →