Get paid to fly. Earn your Commercial Pilot Certificate.

The Commercial Pilot Certificate is the rating that takes you from amateur to professional. With a Commercial, you can be compensated for flying. It is the prerequisite for every career flying job, from flight instruction to corporate aviation to the airlines.

Commercial training refines your stick-and-rudder skills to a higher precision standard, introduces complex aircraft (the Piper Arrow with retractable gear and constant-speed prop), and adds maneuvers the Private Pilot did not see: chandelles, lazy eights, eights-on-pylons, steep spirals, and accelerated stalls.

Commercial pilots can fly for compensation under FAR 119, can carry passengers and cargo for hire under appropriate operating certificates, and are held to tighter performance standards on every maneuver. The checkride is materially harder than the Private. [expand]

Part 61 requires 250 hours total time including 100 hours PIC, 50 hours cross-country PIC, and 10 hours of dual instruction in a complex airplane. Part 141 cuts the total to 190 hours under an approved syllabus. Both require specific dual instruction blocks on Commercial maneuvers. [expand]

The Piper Cherokee Arrow at Riverside satisfies the complex aircraft training requirement (retractable landing gear, controllable-pitch propeller, flaps). Most students fly 10 to 20 hours in the Arrow during Commercial training. [expand]

Commercial training cost is driven mostly by the hour-building gap between Instrument completion and the 250-hour Part 61 minimum (or 190-hour Part 141 minimum). Plan for $20,000 to $30,000 total, including aircraft rental for time-building and 10 to 15 hours of focused dual on Commercial maneuvers. [expand]