Commercial License Your next big step is acquiring your commercial license. This course will widen the scope of your aviation knowledge, and will allow you to earn income from flying. Private pilots are not allowed to be given so much as a coffee in return for flying services. Remember, you need a category 1 medical certificate, so obtain one as early as possible in your training. As with your private license, you will have both a ground school and an in-flight element to your training. The in-flight training for your commercial license is mostly “time-building”. This means that you will plan many short and long trips by yourself or with friends, gaining experience by flying in new regions, flying to new airports, and refining the skills you developed during your Private Pilot training. What your commercial in-flight training focuses on is making you a more precise and confident pilot. In you Private training, you were allowed a certain margin for error in all your in-flight tasks. For example, did you lose 150 feet in that 180 degree turn? In your Private training, that would be fine. In you Commercial training, more is expected of you, and you will have to keep your altitude constant through a turn. The goal is to improve the quality of your flying to the point where you’ll be ready when a flight attendant bursts out of a 747 cockpit, looks into the crowd of passengers and asks in barely concealed panic “Is there a pilot on board?” Everyone will sigh in collective relief when you stand and calmly state “I’m a commercial pilot, how can I help?” Just kidding. The Commercial Ground School is similar to the Private Ground School, but each subject is covered in more detail. Our ground school offers you 65 hours of the following subjects with the rest self study and practice exams to meet your 80 hour requirement: (i) Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs) (ii) Aerodynamics and Theory of Flight (iii) Meteorology (iv) Airframes, Engines and Systems (v) Flight Instruments (vi) Radio and Electronic Theory (vii) Navigation (viii) Flight Operations (ix) Licensing Requirements (x) Human Factors including Pilot Decision Making Before completing your Commercial License, you will have completed a minimum of 200 hours of total flight time, of which a minimum of 100 hours will be pilot-in-command time, including 20 hours cross-country pilot-in-command flight time. Transport Canada outlines the rest of your requirements as follows: An applicant shall, following the issue of a Private Pilot License - Aeroplane by Canada or an other Contracting State, have completed 65 hours of commercial pilot flight training in aeroplanes consisting of a minimum of: (i) 35 hours dual instruction flight time, including: (A) 5 hours night, including a minimum of 2 hours of cross-country flight time (B) 5 hours cross-country, which may include the cross-country experience from (A) above; and (C) 20 hours of instrument flight time in addition to the experience stated in (A) and (B) above. A maximum 10 hours of the 20 hours may be conducted on an approved aeroplane simulator or flight training device. (ii) 30 hours solo flight time including: (A) 25 hours solo flight time emphasizing the improvement of general flying skills of the applicant which shall include a cross-country flight to a point of a minimum of 300 nautical mile radius from the point of departure and shall include a minimum of 3 landings at points other than that of departure, and (B) 5 hours solo flight time by night during which a minimum of 10 takeoffs, circuits and landings were completed. If any of this is confusing, don’t worry. Not long after beginning your training, much of the aviation language will become familiar. If you have any questions at all, feel free to email us, come by for a visit, or give us a call. Our goal is to provide any information you need to make your flying dreams a reality. Click here for Commercial Pilot course fees. (back to top)