Licenses overview

So now that we've got the absolute basics out of the way, we'll take a look at the initial licenses you'll need and also a little bit of detail about them.

First, I'm going to mention them in a list, and thereafter we will take a closer look at them individually.

Here are all of the licenses, starting from the basic to the advanced ones, in that order:

1. Sport Pilot License

2. Recreational Pilot License

3. Private Pilot License

4. Commercial Pilot License

5. Airline Transport Pilot License

You'll notice I have purposely left out the Instrument Rating and the Multi-Engine Rating as we'll look at them later on in the article, and as the name suggests, they are a rating on top of a license and not a license by themselves.

Sport Pilot License (SPL):

A Sport Pilot License allows you to fly light sport category aircraft (LSA), and requires the least amount of hours out of all the licenses, as well as the most basic medical certification (Class 3). Due to these reasons, it is also subject to the most limitations as to where you can fly, in what aircraft, what altitude, and distance. We shall keep things fairly simple and non-technical for now but should you want more technicality and detail, each license on the list above will soon have a section of its own, with a link embedded in it that'll take you to its individual page.

Recreational Pilot License (RPL):

A Recreational Pilot License grants a bit more freedom (More information on this type of license will be published soon).

Private Pilot License (PPL):

The Private Pilot License, or PPL, is the next license after a Recreational/Sport Pilot License. However, you do not need a Recreational/Sport Pilot License to begin flight training towards a PPL, you can start with a PPL itself from scratch. The Recreational/Sport Pilot License is simply the most basic license out of all.

Coming back to the PPL, a Private Pilot License allows you to train for hobby flying, similar to the Sport Pilot License, however, it allows for some additional privileges and consequently has higher hour requirements. For this reason, a Private Pilot License requires a higher category medical, being the Class 2, which is still quite basic compared to a Class 1 Medical (for more information on aviation medicals, click here).

Commercial Pilot License (CPL):

The Commercial Pilot License or CPL allows for additional privileges, the biggest one being the ability to legally charge in exchange for flying, or flying in exchange for pay. As you might have noticed by now, the higher we go on the licenses, the more the privileges, and consequently, the more the requirements. For this reason, a Commercial Pilot License has even higher requirements than a PPL, and a higher class medical examination, that being the Class 1 Medical, which is about as high as it gets. However, even the Class 1 Medical should be fairly easy to pass, notwithstanding certain conditions.

Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL):

We now come to the final category of licenses, that is, the Airline Transport Pilot License, which is the license required to fly heavy aircraft for airlines, as is evident in the name. The ATPL has the highest number of hours required, and grants the most privileges, however, the medical certification required is still the same, i.e. Class 1.

Before we move on to the Multi-Engine Rating and the Instrument Rating, a quick recap of the licenses along with their hour and medical certification requirements:

1. SPL: Hours required: 20 hours minimum Medical required: Class 3

2. PPL: Hours required: 35-40 hours minimum Medical required: Class 2

3. CPL: Hours required: 180-250 hours minimum Medical required: Class 1

4. ATPL: Hours required: 1500 hours minimum Medical required: Class 1

Now let's move on to the Multi-Engine and Instrument Ratings.

Instrument Rating:

To keep it very short, there are two ways of flying: visually (by looking outside), and by looking at the instruments of the aircraft. Looking outside is the default and is known as VFR flying (Visual Flight Rules). Since the weather may not always allow for good visibility, an Instrument Rating allows the pilot to fly an aircraft without having to look outside, by simply choosing to fly looking at the aircraft's instruments, hence the name Instrument Rating.

Multi-Engine Rating:

Aircraft have historically been built with 1, 2, 3, and 4 engines, but during training we are concerned only with the first two. By default, you are allowed to train on a single-engine airplane, and should you wish to upgrade, a Multi-Engine Rating allows you to fly aircraft having more than 1 engine (typically 2 in our case).

This was a basic overview of the licenses and ratings involved in flight training.