This week Bobby and Wally wade into the mysterious waters of training Part 61 vs. Part 141. If you're a brand new student, all the information can be a bit daunting. Which path should you choose?? The guys dig into all the facts on this week's episode of BTP!
There are many misconceptions about the differences between Part 61 & Part 141 flight schools. Is one better? Does one save you money over the other? Who better to ask than a flight school owner and a DPE! Bobby and Wally lay it all out and answer some great questions!
Clear prop! Number two following twin traffic on 3 mile final. JB using runway 25 on a 4 mile final.
This is Behind the Prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot, Bobby Doss. and it's co-host: major airline captain Designated Pilot Examiner, Wally Mulhearn. Now let's go behind the prop!
What's up Wally? Hey Bobby, how are you? I'm good. I have been looking forward to this show and the reason we haven't done it sooner is the amount of research, time I think I put into it. This is all about part sixty-one flight training versus part one-forty-one flight training. Something that I talk about on a regular basis. I've actually learned a lot in my research, so might change some of my talk tracks. You as a DPE give check rides to students that have participated in both parts sixty-one and part one forty-one training, and today we hope to cover all things that come up in our questions in dialogue about this stuff to help students, I guess make the right decision based on some real content that we're going to share today. So first, I mean man, when I first started flying. I don't even think he went told me anything about sixty-one and one forty-one, but a lot of times students come in here. They're probably child of airline pilot, and they have heard about parts sixty-one, and part one forty-one and a have some questions. If you could rewind back before you all the knowledge of now what would your earlier thoughts be on just the fifty-thousand-foot view of part sixty-one, and part one forty-one. Well first of all when we think of their regulations there are certain sections of the regulations that we become very familiar with as pilots. In general part sixty-one has to do with certification of pilots. So if you want to know gee how many hours do I need to have to become a commercial pilot or how much night cross country time do I need to have to become a private pilot. In general you'd look under part sixty-one. The has to do with certification, however part one forty-one is the area the regulations that governs approved flight schools. So when you want to get a pilot certificate or rating, you're going to fall under one of these sets of regulations, either parts sixty-one or part one forty-one. I would say probably the vast majority of flight schools out there in the real world are part sixty-one. I don't have any idea of how many part sixty-one schools we have versus part one forty-one schools, but I would say the majority is part sixty-one. Part one forty-one is FAA approved flight schools and to become a part one forty-one school, you need to have a special authorization from the FAA and be designated as such. There's a lot a lot more oversight if you will from the FAA under a part one forty-one school. There's a lot more structure under a part one forty-one school. In fact you know they'll actually come in and inspect your facilities and they'll say okay you've got x number of briefing rooms x number of classrooms, okay. You have a simulator. They will look at all your airplanes and, you know. They do more than just look. Oh yeah yeah, and certainly they will look at your record keeping system whether it's electronic or paper record keeping system. You know the first question is which do I do? Part one forty-one or part sixty-one. They're both right. Neither one of them is wrong. One of them may be better suited for you than the other. But they're certainly both right.
I all my training coming up back in the day was under part sixty-one. In fact, well there was one one forty-one school at the that airport I flying was at, but all mine was done on part sixty-one. I will say from an examiner standpoint, the check ride that the applicant is going to get is exactly the same. I'm not going to give a different check ride to a one forty-one student versus a part sixty-one students. It’s going to be exactly the same. There is a little bit, you know, when I go in, and get some pre- approvals, and go through the IACRA process. I do have to enter the name of the flight school. If it's a part one forty-one. I have to have their designation authorization number versus part sixty-one. You don't have to do that. There's no place to put down the flight school a on part sixty-one application. In a part sixty-one application, I'm going to be looking at the log book extensively, and going through all the flight times and so forth. Where part one forty-one really what is a graduation certificate that says that the applicant graduated from the approved course. That they're taking a check ride for. Yes, so as the checkride comes after all that training. So let's rewind a little bit and say well what do we do? A flight school that's part one forty-one flight school do we pretty much... It kind of gets down to like you said, oversight, and then a lot of reporting. So they know every aircraft I have, they know every aircraft house equipped, every chief instructor I have, every assistant chief I have, their certain qualifications for those. I would say those are very similar if not exactly the same for part sixty-one versus one forty-one, but there's a reporting a keeping informed of to the FAA as it relates to some of that stuff. I would say it takes effort. There's no doubt that it's harder to be a one forty-one school, because you have to do all the work to get qualified which could take years, and thank goodness the previous owner did all that hard work to get approved originally. Now we go through a renewal process every two years and keep track we do go through, I'm going to say a half dozen inspections a year, They come out, they look at aircraft, they provide help with what will call it help us with our aircraft, and the team in Houston the one that I work with a group of people that I've interacted with quite a bit, but we are in tandem working together to provide a set of syllabi for whatever we want to offer. And we've chosen to offer private, instrument, commercial, and will add the multi in two thousand twenty-one and some other things that were planning on doing, but one of the things that I don't think people realize is one forty-one is, it can be anything. It's not just a rating, so you can create special curriculum the FAA if approves it then you can deliver that training, and you could graduate students from that training, but it might not necessarily be something that we normally think about. So we, for years, have had a flight review. That's it's a one forty-one course that you can take that's approved by the FAA, and you can graduate from our one forty-one flight review, but it still follows the AC that we all use to do it. It's just we've created a level of structure and rigor around that flight review. Both to prepare a student as they come into the flight school, and then as they graduate that program which is just a flight review.
That feels more like it's a one forty-one course. Every flight school anybody that's training trains under part sixty-one or has the option to train under part sixty-one, and I think there's some themes that go around with some of this. When I asked you what do you think of, I thought you may say structured verse unstructured. I think that's almost verbatim what most people walk in the flight school say. " I met Billy he's a pilot, he said that I like structure so I'm going to I'm want be a part one forty-one student", and that does mean something in the grand scheme of things. Then other people say. " I'm part time so I really just want to do one sixty-one and while that's kind of true that's not the only two things that delineate between part sixty-one, and part one forty-one. The other super common theme is "I hear I have to fly less If do part one forty-one, then if I do part sixty-one." So we'll talk about each of those kinds of pros and cons and things as we talk through it, but let's go back to part sixty-one. The certification stuff private pilot, instrument, commercial, will stick to those for this episode. Under a private pilot part sixty-one says. I need forty hours of flight time. We won't get into all those details because those details could change. This podcast will be on the internet forever, but those forty hours. I do some dual, some solo, some cross country some night some hood time, and then graduate right. We jokingly asked before we started recording. Wally how many people have you done check ride examinations for that had forty hours? Very few.
Maybe out of five hundred check rides. Probably three hundred fifty of them are privates. Maybe Two, so that's like less than point two five percent right all those check rides. Which is astonishing, and I hear a lot of people have the goal of... " I want to be done at minimums." " I'm going be done at minimums", and quite frankly if you're not a pilot today that's hard. Flying a plane is difficult. You're in a stressful situation normally in a stressful circumstance. When you're training, you're doing something. That's a little abnormal steep turn don’t come naturally to someone who doesn't really loved to fly, and hasn't done a bunch of them, so add that stress to how often can you get to the fight school to train. How long can I keep that going. You're probably not going to get done forty hours right. The national average I think from the FAA published a couple years ago and one of their documents is somewhere between sixty-five and seventy. At our flight school. I think we're somewhere closer to fifty-two to sixty, but it really isn't the school necessarily or the instruction as much as it is on the pilot. The student pilot has to be the one that really owns their efforts, and what they're going to put towards it. As does I say a that one forty-one student graduate in thirty-five hours. Which are the regulation minimums in that world, and I don't know if you've done at one forty-one at thirty-five point one hours, but how many thirty-five our private check rides have you done out of those two. I'm trying to think, and I just can't answer that. I don't know, I've done quite a few one forty-one privates. They're usually above forty. Yeah, and so it's going be the number that you need to be able to, I guess accomplish the check ride, perform the maneuvers, and be a safe pilot, and that's going to be different for everyone. So let's say there's a national average there to. I think the key is around those hours is they really get more advantageous around instrument and commercial from a variance between parts one sixty and part one forty-one. So what are the big differences between part one forty-one and sixty-one as it relates to instrument. Well instrument flight time, we're not talking a lot about ground today, but there are some variances in the ground components but let's talk flight time instrument flight time for part one forty-one. You need thirty-five hours of flight time part sixty-one at least forty hours of flight time, and the big number is in part sixty-one to have fifty hours of cross-country time as pilot in command before I'm able to apply or take a practical exam. Which would be meeting Wally. So that's forty-five and fifty cross country. Some of that's going to overlap Some of that I'd have for my private but in the grand scheme of things part one forty-one. I don't have any to of have that cross-country time, and so I don't have to fly any of that fifty hours and that could be a blessing and a curse we jokingly say how well can you fly if you've really only flown one cross country in your aviation career. So that something to think about, but you can in essence take an instrument check ride at the regular regulation minimums at seventy point one I guess, become an instrument and rated pilot. Where I think the majority of par sixty-one and you tell me. You've seen a lot more of them. I think. One hundred and fifty our instrument check right. Yeah, yeah, I mean. I've probably flown sixty our private right. And I probably flew forty more than the across country on top of that and I was in no rush. I wasn't structurally doing it. So probably in that one. Fifty range Which is probably more common. Yeah, yeah so think about that. The the big savings where people talk about flight. Time is part sixty part one. Forty-one is truly in that instrument world. Because at that point. If I’m at seventy then the commercial numbers again.
These are minimums. You'll probably never do it at minimums but the needs for commercials a hundred ninety hours signing two hundred and twenty more hours. There are some regulations on how much flight time I do with an instructor etcetera in a par sixty-one. It's two hundred and fifty hours so it's still an it's hard to say. Where's that coming from. But almost the sixty-hour difference is the five and private five and instrument and the fifty cross country that go way as it relates to the instrument. So you really could fly sixty hours less and become a commercial pilot under part one forty-one and that sixty hours give or take it rounded off national averages two hundred two fifty an hour for dual instruction not all of it be dual. So we'll say two hundred our two hundred dollars an hour that's about twelve grand. That's a lotta money And in that something that you need to take into effect right for sure. I you know going back to the difference in parts sixty-one and one forty-one sixty-one or one. Forty-one is definitely more structured You know I. I work with with some flight schools. Where when when the applicant or when the student walks in the door they don't even know who their instructors going to be that day. There's there's good and bad to that. I mean if you have an instructor that you've built a reporter would and you're you get along with and and they're they're teaching you And then you go to a different structure the next day Obviously obviously that's maybe not a good thing but it you know there is some good to to seeing different ways to to do the same. You know the different approaches to doing a maneuver possibly One instructor may have Trick in their bag that that the other instructor did not so You know the one forty-one It is it is more structured in in that You know hopefully any school you go to a going to follow some some sort of a syllabus but One forty one is is more inclined to to follow that to the tea. I'm you do have some some flexibility and moving things around for instance have we got an eighteen hundred overcast day on. You can't get out and do your stalls on but maybe you can stand the pattern and do some things I know. There's there is some flexibility with that within the the syllabus apar- one forty-one school and we have it where sometimes the complete lesson isn't finished in that lesson, they got to go back out and do some of those things and To to wrap up the actual content in that lesson. But that's a good point the syllabus key and I don't wanna top get too far off topic but you would want to think about using a flat school that does follow some sort of a syllabus and part sixty one and oddly enough we follow the very similar syllabus offer par sixty one and keep those parts sixty one records electronically much like we do paper today for one forty one and we'll next year electronically for one forty one So the the the the steps by which you take to get your license or a correct that certificate then you you you really follow the same things at this particular flight school And as you said I might go to a corporate big big. Corporate conglomerate fly school. That might not give me the flexibility to choose my student or might require me to go everyday based on our arrangement. But I’m sure you can find a flight school out there. That would let you pick your own instructor. We'll let you pick the days you're going to fly and could still be part one forty-one. You're just going to to you don't want to take too many steps forward and then take a big break to lose some of that momentum that you would had Along the way so let's talk a little bit about pros and cons to those things right. We talked a little bit about the flexibility of part sixty-one and maybe not so much flexibility. One forty-one the albeit some. Maybe not a whole lot of it. I i I’d say it's rare There is a part one forty-one school nowadays. I don't know the math either. But I’m going to guess less than ten percent maybe even less than five percent in the grand scheme of things because it's difficult it's hard and there's a sort of reporting and regulation and oversight that maybe not everyone wants to put up with her deal with But that creates potentially a cost factor which happen at my flight school. Our flight school the cost of the same. If you're one forty-one hundred sixty-one. We've just decided to do both. But I can see where there might be a level of overhead. That's more expensive for the school to maintain those people And to do that and might make that school a little bit more expensive Some people talk about the rigidity of a one forty-one program that that might not be there more. Free spirited and free will and wanna go hop around. I can see that being a personal preference not necessarily a pro or con That could be probably seen both ways for sure Any other things that you're thinking about from part sixty-one forty-one pros and cons the equipment's the same. The books are the same. I mean for all intents and purposes were still following the private pilot. Handbook a very nautical knowledge in the airplane. Flying handbook right a certain syllabus that we may have chosen but you learn the wing still stalls when it reaches its critical angle of attack right and and the the pilot certificate. That you get is the same. It doesn't doesn't differentiate between sixty-one or one forty-one gold star on their. No I think if you go to a job interview unless they flat out asked you You know unless they really dug in that logbook and saw that you got a commercial pilot certificate at two hundred one hours you know they. They probably wouldn't wouldn't even know so you know. I don't see a big difference from that standpoint. I. I gave a young man check ride. I'd probably four or five months ago. and honestly I. He was an instrument student on a Part one forty-one and the the day before the check ride. I always do. I pulled up his application and went through it and His total flight time was about Like eighty some odd hours. And I thought to myself. Oh my gosh boy. This is not going to go well and it was A check ride out of town so they really didn't know me We went under check ride and the the the young man did an excellent job. A really good job so it can be done Maybe not for everybody. I told him I said either. You just really worked hard or or your instruction is really good and it was probably both probably both before that For all that come together but like we said earlier it really comes down to the student to. They have to do it. They have to own it. They have to study like any other student taking on some new task And it's going to be a rarity that someone meets the low number of hours like that for sure for an instrument rating maybe not a pro versus con but some of the some of the things that quote unquote bite students. Start one way and wanna finish and other way will talk through some of those. I guess the big one is if you start working towards a certificate part sixty-one. It's probably going to be more unlikely to be cost effective to go one. Forty-one after the fact because the way it's structured in the way that it's been approved by the faa. You probably won't get to count a lot of those. You won't get the county any of those previous hours that you put towards that certificate if they're for the training purposes of that certificate so the dual instruction. You might go to school and do ten hours of dual instrument instruction with Billy the cfi there and then say I want to go one forty-one in another flight. School will the ten hours of dual there with Billy. All instrument training probably won't fit into their syllabus. You won't get the credit for that time you're not going to get to count those hours. It could be time building PIC Time it might. On the periphery. Count in some way. But it's not going to be toward the minimums of that particular course outline that's been approved by the FAA. The other thing is transferring. If you are one. Forty-one student. I can't I can't go one forty-one school a and be ready to take my check ride get mad and frustrated and move to another flight school and then them graduate me remember. Wally said we need a graduation certificate. And that means the chief of that. endorsing flight. School needs to graduate you and that to be able to do that. There's a certain number of rules around what that chief has to do. See and be able to validate to be able to graduate you. So you're not going to be able to bring all your flight time over finish at that flight school by flying three hours of dual to be check ride. Ready like you might be able to do if it was part sixty-one so you lose some of that flexibility now. The one thing that gets talked about quite regularly. Is that. If I’ve done all my part one forty-one stuff and that's why school closes what am I going to do. Well then, most students just finish par sixty-one like you said there's no Goldstar there's no delineation between the two and in most cases oddly enough the instrument being one. That's pretty far out of bounds. You're probably going to have most of those requirements that are need to be met under par sixty-one instrument. You might need to build some cross-country time Or or find a fly school that can finish you and hopefully you can do more than half you’re training with that flight school which is normally the rule to get you to graduate or get a chief to be able to give you a graduation certificate So there could be some things to think about there but if you're working with an established flight school and you think you wanna do one forty-one. I can't think of a reason that you could go wrong. Doing one forty-one because you can always fallback part sixty-one if you think you want to hop hop from school to school to school. I don't think part for one forty-one. Whatever makes sense for you Getting dual from multiple schools. It's just not going to work And then I I would I. I'm obviously biased. Wally and I own a flight school. That's got a one forty-one certificate hanging on the wall and we do par sixty-one training. I think there's a reason to pick a school. That can do both have probably put in a little bit more effort. Little more time Done the hard work to to have a level of professionalism that maybe some don't but that's definitely not to knock anybody else just doing part sixty-one. It's expensive and takes a lot of hard work So there could be other reasons. But I think if I was looking, I might be a little biased on finding one that can do both and then making decision which I’m going to go with. What else do you think. We talked a little bit about a recruiter. Would recruiter care. I don't know that a recruiter would know. We've we've cleared that up a little bit And I’ve talked to a lot of recruiters. I've talked to a lot of regional airline flight recruiters that I asked the question. Do you care and no one cares. No one's ever cared. They really want the best pilots and some of those best pilots might be part. Sixty-one pilots no question. Yeah, so I guess the last thing before we wrap up is which would you suggest for a student right. I get asked this question all the time. And it's a very difficult conversation to have because there's so many variables and so many reasons to do one or the other but let's role play for a second Wally. If I was a brand-new student walked in the door and you own this school what would you. What kind of guidance might you give me you. Talk me through to help me think through that decision. I would have to know what your ultimate goal was. If you're if all you want to do is get your private pilot's certificate and and you know maybe buy an airplane and fly around on weekends. I would probably say part sixty-one might be a good fit for you. If you come in and say I want to do this for career. I want to be a professional pilot. Corporate pilot airline pilot. whatever I would. I would strongly say to consider part one forty-one no question. I think I’ve had this conversation with dozens and dozens of new candidates. Flight school candidates. People parents have said in this office and asked this question. And I’ve really struggle with what's best and I think I’ve come up with this research and my thoughts to say I think if I’m going to be if I want to be a professional pilot. There's really no reason not to do part. One forty-one and I saved so much in the instrument timeframe that it would almost be crazy to not really think in go one forty-one for instrument And then I think that the commercials there as well. Why would I not finish it. All at one forty-one and quite frankly the the because there's no downside if I started to not like it for one reason or another in any of my ratings or something happened like a pandemic hit America. I didn't go back to that flight. School for some reason you always have the option to finish up sixty-one. So there's like there's really no downside to that. As as i would say so I would highly suggest now with if someone came in to consider part sixty-one if it's more casual and more later in life and I don't have aspirations or dreams to fly professionally but if someone came in here and said I want to fly airplanes for a living. Then I’m probably appoint them one forty-one all the way and give them a lot of reasons why it's going to be better for them. The the bigger thing that we really haven't talked about that. I'll I’ll wrap up up my part with. Is that the one forty-one school. Also in some cases gives you the ability to have a restricted. Atp at one thousand hours or twelve hundred hours depending on some things and deepen the regs and and we happen to be able to do that here through our partnership with liberty university where you could ever restricted atp. You qualified to take that test at a thousand hours of flight time instead of fifteen hundred hours. And that's that's sixty six percent of flight time. That's that's a lot of time now. A lot of times people aren't paying for those hours are flying instructing or getting paid to do something so that last five hundred hours might not seem like it's too expensive but it's the time while they Wally what would you. How much would you like to have another year of seniority at your current Aaron very much so yeah so so year of of seniority is a big big deal right and yeah five hundred hours Depending on where you are in the united states or the world it might take you more than a year to five hundred hours of flight time as a flight instructor so As as I think about that I would coach to the seniority and get in and gets our building that seniority as early as fast as you can because it's going to be super valuable when you get later in life no question so that would be another big advantage. But that doesn't mean everyone forty-one school does qualify you for part sorry restricted. Atp at one thousand hours just so happens. That United Flight systems does anything to wrap with today while he. Hopefully we've cleared this up for some people not helps. Oh I the you know. The one thing I stress to see if is all the time is is. Don't don't teach someone how to pass a check ride. Don't teach him in the minimums. Teach them how to be a safe pilot And let the let the minimums a fall where they may don't don't worry about the minimums. Don't go out there and say okay. We've got three hours of instrument time. We're good to go. They need more instrument time. Give them more instrument time we got. We got to produce. Safe pilots not just pilots. Meet the minimums. Yeah, and I guess my soapbox there would be used the sim when you have that opportunity but don't stop it three like it's a great tool. It's a great way to use Some flight time for the student that they can log later on the part sixty-one forty-one irrespective use the tools at your disposal to help them be great pilots as always stay behind the prop and fly. Safe thinks for listening.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for checking out the Behind The Prop podcast. be sure to click subscribe and check us out online at BehindTheProp.com behind the prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Show creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co-host is Wally Mulhearn. This show is for entertainment purposes Only. and not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember: fly safe!