Ever wanted to fly for a living?

Are you longing to fly for the airlines, be a fire bomber, crop duster, flight instructor or skywriter? Well, these and hundreds of other flying careers have one thing in common: they all require a commercial pilot’s certificate.

Even if you don’t want to use your wings to earn your paycheck, commercial training gives you the skills to fly complex aircraft with the precision and safety margins that airline passengers have come to take for granted.  The Commercial Certificate also will often reduce your insurance rates.

When you train for your commercial certificate at Windy City Flyers, in addition to the maneuvers you mastered while earning your private pilot certificate and instrument rating, you will learn additional, maximum performance maneuvers such as the chandelle, lazy-8 and eights-on-pylons. This training will build your precision, coordination, planning, orientation and overall smoothness on the controls. After your training, short field and crosswind landings will be a breeze!

FAA Requirements

250 hours total time

50 hours of the 250 can achieved in either of our simulators

100 hours of the 250 must be PIC time

50 hours of the 100 hours of PIC must be PIC cross country

20 hours of the 250 must include specific training requirements towards the Commercial Pilot Certificate

10 hours of the 20 hours must include specific solo requirements

Pass the Commercial FAA written test

Receive and log the required ground training required for the Commercial Pilot Certificate

Pass a check ride given by an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner

Please remember that these are the FAA minimums and that everyone learns at a different pace.  However, you will find that WCF has a progress chart and a very comprehensive syllabus that details out every lesson so that both the Instructor and Student are maximizing each lesson.