Aviation School, Or A Degree, Or Neither

The phrase covers three different products: a four-year university aviation degree, a full-time academy running zero to commercial in twelve to twenty months, and a Part 61 flight school teaching the same certificates around your own calendar. All three end in identical FAA certificates. The certificate itself records nothing about which route you took.

No. The FAA requires no college degree for any pilot certificate and no US airline requires one to be hired. What every airline requires is a commercial certificate with an instrument rating, a first-class medical, and the flight hours for an ATP certificate, which is 1,500 hours under 14 CFR 61.159.

A restricted airline transport pilot certificate lets you fly for a regional airline below the standard 1,500 hours. Under 14 CFR 61.160 a graduate of an FAA-authorised bachelor degree aviation program qualifies at 1,000 hours, an associate degree from an authorised program at 1,250, and military pilots at 750. It is the one genuine advantage a university aviation program holds over a Part 61 flight school.

It is worth it if reaching an airline 500 hours earlier matters more to you than four years of tuition, or if you want a qualification that survives losing your medical certificate. It is usually not worth it for a career changer who already holds a degree, because training part-time while keeping your income gets you flying commercially sooner and for less.

Our published Part 61 sequence from zero to airline-ready is $89,000 and covers the private certificate, instrument rating, commercial certificate and instructor certificates. A university aviation degree adds four years of tuition on top of comparable flight costs. Neither figure includes living expenses during the instructing years that follow.

About two years of training to a commercial certificate with an instrument rating if you fly three or four times a week, then 18 months to two years working as a flight instructor to reach the 1,500 hours an ATP requires. Anybody quoting a much shorter total is counting only the paid training and leaving out the hour building.

Aircraft maintenance technician, aircraft dispatcher, air traffic controller, avionics technician and airline operations. Each has its own certificate and its own school: maintenance through a 14 CFR Part 147 school or 30 months of documented experience under 14 CFR 65.77, dispatch with a minimum age of 23 under 14 CFR 65.53, and air traffic control hired directly by the FAA with an entry age limit under 31.

No school can, because no school does the hiring. Airline hiring runs in cycles that have wrong-footed far better forecasters than any flight school, and anyone starting training today should plan for at least one bad hiring year in their first decade. Read any employment promise or conditional refund extremely carefully before signing a loan against it.

Part 141 has lower legal minimums, 190 hours for a commercial certificate against 250 under Part 61, but almost nobody finishes at either number, and the gap is hours you build rather than instruction you buy. Part 61 suits anyone with a job, because the syllabus bends around your calendar and no lesson repeats for administrative reasons. Choose a Part 141 course if you need an M-1 student visa, which a Part 61 school cannot support.

The money between the commercial certificate and 1,500 hours. Almost everyone instructs through that stretch, it lasts 18 months to two years, and it pays modestly with none of the benefits of the job you probably left. That is where most career changers stop, and it is not covered by any training package, including ours.

We teach the flying side at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Suite 108A at Van Nuys Airport, 9AM to 9PM seven days, from private pilot through to instructor certificates. Van Nuys is a Class D field under the LAX Class B shelf, so controlled airspace and radio work start on lesson one, and 355 days a year clear our training weather threshold based on twelve months of NOAA observations.