Licenses & Ratings

Pilot certification is an alphabet soup — PPL, IR, CPL, ATPL, CFI — and understanding what each certificate and rating actually permits is the foundation of every good training decision. This collection explains the major licenses and ratings in plain language: what you can do with each, what training and testing they typically involve, and the order most pilots earn them in. Because certification rules differ between the FAA, EASA, and other authorities — and get amended over time — we describe requirements as they typically stand and link the reader to the current official sources rather than presenting hour numbers as immutable facts. Think of these guides as the orientation briefing before you read the actual regulations.