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Becoming a Pilot

Pilot

Want to take to the skies and fly an airplane for a living? Find out what it takes to become a pilot!

Pilots - Come Fly With Me

If you were a superhero, would you want the power to fly? You can if you grow up to be a pilot! Despite what you may have heard, you don't have to be good at math, trained in the military, or have perfect vision to be a pilot. Anyone - men, women, people with 20/20 vision and those with glasses as thick as Coke bottles - can be pilots.

Pilots - Take to the Skies

To be a pilot, you have to get a commercial pilot certificate by passing commercial pilot ground school and logging at least 250 flight hours. Then you need to pass a check-ride, which is like the driving test you take to get your driver's license. You also need to get a medical certificate to meet the health and fitness requirements to be a pilot, an instrument rating to fly with low visibility (in clouds and bad weather), and a multi-engine rating since most commercial planes have multiple engines. After all that, you have to get an airline transport pilot certificate, which is the highest pilot certificate that allows you to be the pilot in command a.k.a. the captain of a large commercial airline (the dude who sits in the left seat in the cockpit).

Pilots - How Much $$$ Do Pilots Make?

It's a stressful job - after all, you're operating a massive machine in sometimes extreme weather conditions, and you're responsible for the lives of hundreds of people on the plane - but it's also very rewarding. You work in an office that travels, your view is constantly changing, and you and your family get to travel for free to anywhere in the world! The pay isn't bad either! In your first year with a commercial airline like Delta or American Airlines, you can make anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000, but after 10 years of flying your salary goes way up to six figures!

Pilots - Did U Know?

Aviation Day is observed every year on August 19th in memory of Orville Wright, who built and piloted the world's first successful airplane with his brother Wilbur.