Second Class Medical Certificate
Being paid to fly is what a commercial pilot certificate permits, and a second class medical certificate is what makes that permission legal. It runs for twelve calendar months at any age, its vision standard is identical to the first class one, and it asks for no electrocardiogram at all. That last point is the whole practical difference between the two.
What Is A Second Class Medical Certificate?
It is the middle class of FAA airman medical certificate, set out in subpart C of part 67, and 61.23(a)(2)(ii) makes it the floor for exercising commercial pilot privileges in an aircraft other than a balloon or glider. In practice it is the certificate that turns flying from something you pay for into something you are paid for. 61.23(d)(2)(i) gives those privileges twelve calendar months, and that figure does not move with age.
Almost everything in the standards matches the first class exactly. Subpart C mirrors subpart B section for section, and in several places the wording is identical rather than merely similar. The eye paragraph is the one people expect to be easier and is not: 67.203 reproduces 67.103 word for word, the intermediate near check from age fifty included.
One difference is worth the entire page. 67.111(b) obliges a first-class applicant to produce an electrocardiographic examination at the first application after the thirty-fifth birthday and annually after the fortieth. Nothing of the sort appears in 67.211, which lists six cardiovascular conditions and stops. For an applicant in their forties or fifties, that is the practical distinction between the two examinations.
Classes are not separate documents, which is the thing that confuses people most. Sit the first-class examination and one certificate comes out of it, supporting first-class privileges for a while, commercial privileges for longer, and private privileges for longer still. Sitting second class buys the middle tier and the lower one, and not the top.
And a boundary this page will hold to throughout. Nothing here can tell you whether a certificate will be issued to you. Only an Aviation Medical Examiner can, having examined you and read your history. What is set out below is the text of the standards and where each of them lives.
Who Needs A Second Class Medical Certificate?
61.23(a)(2) names three cases. Exercising second-in-command privileges of an airline transport pilot certificate in a part 121 operation, other than the flag and supplemental operations that 61.23(a)(1)(ii) sends to first class. Exercising the privileges of a commercial pilot certificate in an aircraft other than a balloon or glider. And, except as 61.23(b)(5) provides, exercising commercial balloon privileges for compensation or hire.
That second case is the one almost everybody on this page is reading about. Flight instruction, aerial survey, pipeline patrol, banner work, jump flying and charter operations under various rules are all commercial pilot activities, and none of them requires an airline transport pilot certificate. A second class certificate covers every one of them.
It also covers a case people forget: a flight instructor acting as pilot in command or as a required crewmember needs at least a third class under 61.23(a)(3)(ii), and a second class satisfies that comfortably for sixty or twenty-four calendar months depending on your age at examination. So the instructor who has just started building hours is usually holding more validity than they realise.
First Class Or Second Class — Which Should You Sit?
Putting this near the top rather than at the bottom, because for most readers it is the only question on the page and it turns on a single section number.
Second Class
Everything a commercial pilot certificate permits, on a twelve-month clock that does not shorten at forty, with no heart tracing written into the standard at any age.
Best forsomebody being paid to fly who does not need airline transport command privileges
- Cardiovascular Section67.211
- ElectrocardiogramNone, at any age
- Commercial Validity12 calendar months, any age
- Supports ATP CommandNo
First Class
One appointment establishes whether the top of a professional route is medically open, and the certificate then steps down through commercial and private privileges rather than being wasted.
Best foranybody whose plan includes an airline transport pilot certificate
- Cardiovascular Section67.111
- ElectrocardiogramFrom 35, then annually from 40
- Commercial Validity12 calendar months, any age
- Supports ATP CommandYes, 12 or 6 calendar months
Side By Side
| Second Class | First Class | Third Class | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governing Subpart | Subpart C | Subpart B | Subpart D |
| Distance Vision | 20/20 each eye | 20/20 each eye | 20/40 each eye |
| Near Vision At 16 Inches | 20/40 | 20/40 | 20/40 |
| Near Check At 32 Inches From 50 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Electrocardiogram | None | From 35, annually from 40 | None |
| Commercial Privileges | 12 calendar months | 12 calendar months | Not supported |
| Private Privileges Under 40 | 60 calendar months | 60 calendar months | 60 calendar months |
Is The Vision Standard Easier At Second Class?
No, and this is the commonest error people arrive with. 67.203 reproduces 67.103 in identical language. Distant acuity at 20/20 or better, eye by eye, corrected or not. Near vision at 20/40 or better, sixteen inches, eye by eye. Colour perception sufficient for airman duties. Normal fields of vision. And from the fiftieth birthday, that near check run at both sixteen inches and thirty-two inches.
The class where the eye standard genuinely relaxes is the third, at 67.303, and it relaxes in two distinct ways. Distant acuity there is 20/40 rather than 20/20. And the near paragraph stops after sixteen inches: there is no second distance and no age condition anywhere in the section. 67.303 has four paragraphs in total against the six in 67.103 and 67.203.
That distinction is worth being pedantic about, because a version of this page elsewhere on the internet has claimed an intermediate vision requirement at fifty for third class holders, and people plan around what they read. Go and look at 67.303 yourself. It is short, and the second distance is simply not in it.
What Are The Second Class Medical Standards?
Subpart C runs to eight sections and mirrors subpart B section for section. 67.201 eligibility, 67.203 the eye, 67.205 ear, nose, throat and equilibrium, 67.207 mental, 67.209 neurologic, 67.211 cardiovascular, 67.213 the general medical condition, 67.215 the discretionary route.
67.211 — Cardiovascular, And What Is Absent From It
This section is worth reading in full because it is short and because what it does not say is the point. The cardiovascular standards for a second class certificate are simply that no established history or clinical diagnosis exists of any of six things, set out as lettered paragraphs: heart attack; angina pectoris; coronary heart disease requiring treatment, or symptomatic or clinically significant when untreated; a replaced cardiac valve; an implanted permanent pacemaker; a replaced heart.
That is the entire section. There is no paragraph (g). There is no electrocardiogram requirement, no age trigger and no sixty-day currency rule, because none of those exists outside 67.111(b) and 67.111(c). Anybody telling you a heart tracing is required for second class certification is describing the first class standard by mistake.
- Six conditions, listed (a) through (f)
- No electrocardiogram paragraph at any age
- No sixty-day currency rule, because there is nothing to date
- The first class equivalent at 67.111 has three paragraphs, not one
67.203 — Eye
Identical to 67.103. Distance at 20/20 or better, eye by eye, corrected or not, with a wear-them limitation printed on the certificate where correction is what achieves it. Near at 20/40 at sixteen inches, and from age fifty at thirty-two inches too. Colour perception sufficient for airman duties, normal fields of vision, and freedom from eye conditions that interfere with function or would be aggravated by flying.
67.203(f) carries the same fusion provision as 67.103(f), and like that paragraph it is only tested where specific prism-diopter thresholds are exceeded. Thirty-two inches is roughly the distance from your eye to an instrument panel, which is why the requirement exists and why a prescription optimised for a book can fall short of it.
- 20/20 at distance, each eye separately
- 20/40 near at sixteen inches
- From fifty, that near check runs at thirty-two inches as well
- Word for word the same as the first class standard
67.207 And 67.209 — Mental And Neurologic
67.207 lists a severe personality disorder repeatedly shown in overt acts, a psychosis as the section defines it, a bipolar disorder, and substance dependence except where clinical evidence establishes recovery including complete abstinence across at least the preceding two years. It also addresses substance abuse within the preceding two years, and closes with a discretionary clause on other mental conditions.
67.209 names epilepsy, a disturbance of consciousness for which no satisfactory medical explanation exists, and a transient loss of control over nervous system functions where the cause is medically unexplained, then closes with its own discretionary clause. Both sections are effectively identical to their first class counterparts, so nothing in a history that would be difficult at first class becomes easy at second.
- Written around diagnoses and treatment histories
- Substance dependence requires two years of documented abstinence
- Both sections end with a discretionary clause
- Materially the same as 67.107 and 67.109
67.205, 67.213 And 67.215
67.205 accepts any one of three hearing demonstrations: a conversational voice at ordinary volume, heard with both ears from six feet in a quiet room while the examiner faces away; a speech discrimination score of at least seventy percent in one ear or in a sound field; or pure tone audiometry falling within the published table of worst acceptable thresholds. The rest of the section deals with ear, nose, throat and equilibrium conditions and with vertigo.
67.213(a) rules out an established history or clinical diagnosis of diabetes mellitus requiring insulin or another hypoglycaemic drug for control, and paragraphs (b) and (c) let the Federal Air Surgeon consider any other disease, defect, limitation, medication or treatment that would make you unable to exercise the privileges safely. 67.215 then sends anybody failing 67.203 through 67.213 to 67.401, which is the discretionary route.
- Three alternative hearing demonstrations at 67.205(a)
- Seventy percent is the speech discrimination threshold
- 67.213(a) addresses insulin-requiring diabetes specifically
- 67.215 points at 67.401 for discretionary issuance
What Does The Training Behind Commercial Privileges Cost?
The medical examination is settled directly with the examiner and never reaches an invoice from us. What is priced here is the flying, phase by phase, and each figure is fixed at the point you enrol.
Private Pilot — Comprehensive
Sixty logged hours rather than the regulatory forty, which is the shape most adult students actually finish in.
- ✓60 hours logged, 55 of them airborne
- ✓50 hours flown with an instructor beside you
- ✓5 simulator sessions and 10 hours of ground school
- ✓Books and training materials inside the price
Instrument Rating
The rating that stops weather from deciding your calendar, and the second phase of any professional route.
- ✓Flown in the same airplanes you learned in
- ✓Redbird sessions used for procedures and scan
- ✓Fixed at the figure you enrolled at
Multi-Engine Add-On
A class rating flown in the Piper Seminole, bought as a rating rather than by the hour.
- ✓No hour floor written into the class rating
- ✓Ten to fifteen hours is the usual shape
- ✓Priced as a rating, never as a rental
Airline Career Track
No logged time at the start, a commercial certificate and an instructor rating at the end, under one figure agreed on day one.
- ✓Five phases beneath a single number
- ✓Payment arrangements from $2,500 down
- ✓Nothing repriced when a phase ends
- ✓Part 61 throughout
How Long Does A Second Class Medical Certificate Last?
Two periods from one piece of paper, under the table at 61.23(d)(2), and the table counts from your age on the date of examination rather than your age today.
Commercial Privileges
Twelve calendar months, and the figure does not shorten with age. This is the clock a working pilot renews against, and it is the reason many pilots who do not need airline transport command privileges stay at second class.
- Any Age12 calendar months
- Also CoversATP second-in-command, part 121
- Rule14 CFR 61.23(d)(2)(i)
Private, Student And Instructor Privileges
The long tail. Once the commercial window has closed, the same certificate keeps supporting private and instructor flying for years.
- Under 40 At Examination60 calendar months
- 40 Or Older24 calendar months
- Rule14 CFR 61.23(d)(2)
What It Does Not Support
Airline transport pilot command privileges. Those need a first class certificate under 61.23(a)(1)(i), and no amount of validity on a second class certificate substitutes for it.
- ATP CommandNot supported
- Needs InsteadFirst class, subpart B
- Rule14 CFR 61.23(a)(1)(i)
Why Does The ECG Requirement Matter So Much?
Because it is the only item that genuinely separates the two examinations, and because it recurs. 67.111(b) requires a first-class applicant to show no heart attack and no other clinically significant abnormality on an electrocardiographic examination at the first application after the thirty-fifth birthday, and then annually after the fortieth. 67.111(c) will not accept a tracing dated more than sixty days before the application it accompanies.
For somebody in their fifties renewing at first class, that is an annual heart tracing on a sixty-day leash for the rest of a professional career. It is not an obstacle for most people and it is a genuine piece of administration for all of them, and it is the reason a great many working pilots who never intend to command an airline transport operation simply renew at second class.
It is also, honestly, a reason some people prefer first class. A tracing is a piece of information about your own heart, produced annually, and there are worse things to have. Which way that cuts is a matter for you and your physician rather than for a flight school, and we will not pretend to a view about it.
How Should You Approach The Examination?
None of the following is medical advice. All of it reduces the chance of an avoidable delay, and the ordering is deliberate.
Assemble The History Before The Appointment
Diagnoses with dates, medications current and discontinued, surgeries, and anything a physician recorded that you would not think of as aviation-related. Deferrals are produced by history far more often than by present health, and dates in hand are the most useful preparation available.
Decide Which Class You Are Actually Sitting
Second class answers the question a working pilot needs answered. First class answers a larger one and steps down afterwards. If an airline transport pilot certificate is anywhere in your plan, sitting first class once costs one appointment and settles the ceiling.
Bring The Correction You Actually Wear
From fifty, 67.203(b) runs the near check at sixteen inches and at thirty-two. A reading prescription tuned for a book can meet the near distance and fall short of the intermediate one, and finding that out at the appointment saves a second visit.
Take Anything Complicated To An Examiner First
Where something in your history is likely to be difficult, a paid consultation before you apply lets you find out what evidence is likely to be wanted. What that conversation produces is not something we can foresee, and this page will not imply a particular result from it.
Can BasicMed Cover Commercial Flying?
No. The route at 14 CFR 61.113(i) lets a private pilot act as pilot in command or serve as a required flightcrew member without a part 67 certificate, given a valid U.S. driver’s licence and everything 61.23(c)(3) requires. 61.23(c)(1) sets out where that reaches: student, recreational and private privileges, sport pilot privileges at night, flight instructor duties and examiner duties. Commercial pilot privileges are not in that list and neither are airline transport ones.
The conditions written into 61.113(i) are worth reading before anybody treats it as an equivalent. The aircraft must be authorised to carry no more than seven occupants and must not exceed 12,500 pounds maximum takeoff weight, and it may be flown with no more than six passengers aboard. No portion of the flight may go above 18,000 feet mean sea level, exceed 250 knots indicated, or leave the United States unless the country flown in authorises it.
There is also a correction to make here, because it has been published wrongly and people plan their medical futures around what they read. 68.9(a)(3) limits the cardiovascular conditions to one special issuance per diagnosis, and that list holds four items: heart attack, coronary heart disease that has required treatment, valve replacement and heart replacement. Mental health does not work that way and neither does neurology.
68.9(c)(2) obliges somebody with a clinically diagnosed mental health condition to certify every two years, alongside the certification at 68.3(b)(3), that a State-licensed specialist is still treating them for it. The neurological paragraph at (d)(2) imposes the same recurring obligation for a neurological condition. The one-time wording lives in 68.9(a)(3) and nowhere else in the section.
Six Things Second Class Applicants Get Wrong
Drawn from the questions people actually bring to the desk. None of it is medical advice and all of it is checkable against the sections named.
The Vision Standard Is Not Easier
67.203 reproduces 67.103 exactly, the intermediate check at thirty-two inches from age fifty included. Only third class, at 67.303, genuinely relaxes.
No Heart Tracing Is Required
67.211 lists six conditions and ends. The electrocardiogram paragraphs live at 67.111(b) and 67.111(c), which govern first class certification only.
Twelve Months Does Not Shorten At Forty
For commercial privileges the second class period is twelve calendar months at any age under 61.23(d)(2)(i). It is the first class ATP clock that halves at forty.
A First Class Certificate Steps Down
One certificate, several clocks. Sitting first class does not waste the lower tiers; the same paper carries commercial privileges for twelve months and private privileges for years.
BasicMed Does Not Reach Commercial Flying
61.23(c)(1) lists student, recreational, private, instructor and examiner. Commercial privileges are absent from it, and no reading of 61.113(i) puts them there.
The Certificate Is Not The Whole Duty
61.53 prohibits flying as pilot in command or as a required crewmember while you know of a condition that would prevent you meeting the standard, whatever the paper says.
What Can You Confirm About This School Independently?
Five statements about the operation, each verifiable without taking our word for it. 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 are owned rather than brokered, so the maintenance calendar belongs to the operation.
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 readingSecond Class Medical Questions
The middle class of FAA airman medical certificate, set out in subpart C of 14 CFR part 67. Under 61.23(a)(2)(ii) it is the floor for exercising commercial pilot privileges in an aircraft other than a balloon or glider. Eight sections set the standards, 67.201 through 67.215, and only an Aviation Medical Examiner may issue one.
Commercial privileges run for twelve calendar months at any age under 61.23(d)(2)(i). The same certificate then supports private, recreational, 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.
No, at any age. 67.211 lists six cardiovascular conditions as lettered paragraphs and ends there. The electrocardiogram requirement is at 67.111(b), which governs first class certification only, and the sixty-day currency rule at 67.111(c) belongs to it.
No. 67.203 reproduces 67.103 in identical language, including the near check at both sixteen inches and thirty-two inches from age fifty. The standard that genuinely relaxes is the third class one at 67.303, which asks for 20/40 at distance and has no second near distance and no age condition in it.
The electrocardiogram, and essentially nothing else that most applicants would notice. 67.111(b) requires one for first class certification from the thirty-fifth birthday and annually from the fortieth. 67.211 requires none at any age. The eye, mental, neurologic, hearing and general condition sections are materially the same across the two subparts.
No. 61.23(a)(2)(ii) requires at least a second class certificate for exercising commercial pilot privileges in an aircraft other than a balloon or glider. A third class supports private, recreational and student privileges under 61.23(a)(3), and flight instructor duties, and nothing that involves being paid to carry people or property.
No. 61.23(c)(1) sets out where the 61.113(i) route reaches: student, recreational and private privileges, sport pilot privileges at night, instructor duties and examiner duties. Commercial and airline transport privileges are absent from that list, and the conditions inside 61.113(i) cap the aircraft at seven occupants, 12,500 pounds, six passengers, 18,000 feet and 250 knots indicated.
Only on the cardiovascular side. 68.9(a)(3) limits those to one special issuance per diagnosis across four conditions: heart attack, coronary heart disease that has required treatment, valve replacement and heart replacement. A mental health condition requires certification every two years under 68.9(c)(2), and a neurological condition the same under 68.9(d)(2).
It answers a larger question for one appointment and the certificate steps down through the lower privileges afterwards, so nothing is spent twice. Whether that is the right choice for you depends on your own history and on whether an airline transport pilot certificate is genuinely in your plan, and that is a conversation for an Aviation Medical Examiner rather than for us.
67.215 sends anybody failing 67.203 through 67.213 to 67.401, under which 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 the condition is static or nonprogressive. Both turn on your own evidence, and whether either applies to you is a question for an examiner and not for a flight school.
The Limits Of This Page
What appears above is a description of published federal standards with the citation for each one beside it. It is not medical advice, it is not a prediction, and no part of it indicates whether you personally will be issued a certificate. That question belongs to an Aviation Medical Examiner who has examined you and reviewed your history. Airline Pilot Flight School neither issues medical certificates nor influences their issue, and nothing offered by anybody here changes an outcome determined under part 67.
Every regulation cited on this page 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 number would rest on a sample too small to carry meaning.
Settle The Medical, Then Come And Fly The Twin
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.
The certificate this page describes exists to make paid flying legal. What it cannot tell you is whether you want the work, and there is only one way to gather evidence about that which does not commit you to anything.
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.
The Difference Is 67.111 Against 67.211
Read both sections, decide which class your plan actually needs, and sit the examination before you spend on training. It costs a small fraction of any phase and it is the only item that can close a route outright.
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 →