Expert: Colin Woehrle - 3/23/2005

Question
A little on my background. I have done my bachelor's in science. I am from India - Mumbai. I have a passion for travelling and would like to be a commercial pilot. Can you please tell me what are the requirements, the cost of the course, Institute or Aviation club which is among the best, How many hours are required and if I get a CPL what kind of airplanes and jobs I can get? What other licenses am I eligible to get other than PPL.


Answer
Kiran,
One of the best aviation schools in the US is at the University of North Dakota (www.aero.und.edu). However, since you already have a 4-year degree, you may want to take a look at Airline Transport Professionals (www.allatp.com) This is the most efficient way of becoming a career pilot without gaining a degree in aviation.
After graduating from one of these schools, you will have a commerical pilot license with instrument rating and multi-engine ratings. You will most likely also get an instructor's license. It's important to know that when you do graduate from an aviation school or university, you will only have around 250 hours of flight time. This is merely enough to get a commercial pilot job. Your first real flying job will probably be flight instructing. This is the most economical way of building flight time so that you are desirable for other jobs. Once you log 1000 to 1500 hours of flight experience, you can get a job with an airline, corporate flight department, cargo company, ect. But until those hours have been obtained, you will either be instructing, flying scenic flights, photography flights, or even banner towing, all of which are likely to be undesirable jobs after a couple hundred hours. I'm a flight instructor now and have flown 350 hours in the past year, bringing my total to 600 hours. I have a ways to go myself before I can apply to the airlines. So you can see that it's a long and arduous process.
As for the airplanes you can fly when you get all of your licenses-  just the catagory and class of airplanes you've done training in (Cessna 172, Cessna 182, Piper warriors, Arrows, Seminoles.)
Hope this information serves useful. Thanks for the question!

Sincerely,
Colin W.