The Commercial Multi-Engine Add-On

A multi-engine class rating added to a commercial pilot certificate you already hold, under 14 CFR 61.63(c). It requires an instructor endorsement of competence and proficiency and a commercial-level practical test, and it sets no minimum hours. It is $5,100 here and most pilots finish in ten to fifteen hours.

None, if you are adding the class rating to a commercial certificate you already hold — 14 CFR 61.63(c) specifies no training time. If instead the commercial certificate itself is being earned in a twin, 14 CFR 61.129(b) applies: 250 hours total, including five hours of instrument training in a multiengine airplane and ten hours of training in a multiengine complex or turbine-powered airplane.

Almost always, and by a wide margin. 61.129(b) forces more than thirty hours of twin time into the training requirements. Earning the commercial certificate in a single under 61.129(a) and then adding the class rating for $5,100 under 61.63(c) puts most of your 250 hours in an aeroplane that costs a fraction as much to fly.

No. 14 CFR 61.63(c)(4) excuses an additional knowledge test for anyone who already holds an airplane rating at that pilot certificate level. There is a full oral examination on checkride day, weighted heavily toward V_MC, the critical engine and single-engine performance.

A limitation placed on the certificate when a pilot who holds an instrument rating adds a multi-engine class rating without demonstrating instrument tasks in a multiengine airplane. Appendix 1 of the Commercial Pilot – Airplane ACS (FAA-S-ACS-7B) contains the task table for removing it. Flying the instrument tasks during the rating avoids it entirely.

Operators look for the rating and for currency in it, and multi-engine time appears on most hiring profiles. We do not publish hiring minimums, make placement claims or promise anybody a job. What we can say is that an unrestricted airline transport pilot certificate requires 1,500 hours under 14 CFR 61.159, and that the multi-engine rating is a small, cheap part of getting there.

After, unless you have a specific reason not to. Adding the class rating to a certificate you already hold avoids 61.129(b) entirely. The exception is a pilot who already has substantial twin access, for whom the sums can work the other way.

Ten to fifteen hours of flying for most current commercial pilots, which compresses into about two weeks if you can fly consecutive mornings. There is no legal minimum, so the honest limit is proficiency and the examiner's diary.

Our Piper Seminole: a conventional twin with counter-rotating propellers, retractable gear and constant-speed propellers. Because it produces genuine asymmetric thrust, no centre-thrust limitation attaches to the certificate. Because it is complex, 14 CFR 61.31(e) requires a one-time endorsement to act as pilot in command of it.

For most people, the certified flight instructor certificate and then the multi-engine instructor rating. The MEI needs 15 hours of pilot-in-command time in a multiengine airplane under 14 CFR 61.183(j), which the add-on itself will not give you, so plan where those hours come from before you need them.

The zero-to-airline programme is $89,000 and includes private, instrument, commercial and the multi-engine add-on with the sequence already arranged. Taken separately: private from $10,900, instrument $11,700, multi-engine add-on $5,100. Financing starts from $2,500 down.

Not on its own. Instructing in a twin needs a flight instructor certificate with a multiengine airplane rating, and 14 CFR 61.195(f) additionally requires five hours of pilot-in-command time in the specific make and model before you give training in it.