As far as I know, without the commercial, you're somewhat limited as to what you can do to build time if you don't want to pay for it.  I wish I had a better answer...

I'm too lazy to dig through the FAR/AIM.. but I seem to remember, when getting my commercial.. you needed 250 hours as PIC BEFORE you could get it  

The best way for a young pilot to build time, is to take friends flying.. get them to split the airplane costs  



Edit:  It's 250 hours TOTAL time, if you go Part-61 ... 190 hours total time if Part-141

(you must be doing it Part-141)

Other than instruction, skydiving or banner-tow ops are tried-and-true methods. The banner-tow guys I know rack up a lot of time in a given day (because they are going very slowly). Somewhat dangerous, but it'll build hours. There's also patrol flights- pipe and power-line patrol, traffic patrol (they don't always use helicopters for that).

You might also consider branching out into gliding- most clubs offer a deal that leaves you with a low hourly rate, even after dues, etc. Getting the glider comm. and CFI is usually cheaper and quicker, as well (those two ratings will get you flying more often). That time counts, even if it's not a "real" airplane.

The way we did it in flight school was to hook up with another "time-builder", and do the flights with one under the hood and the other acting as safety pilot.  We would do cross-country trips, with one acting as safety pilot one way, and then switching on the return trip.  By doing this, you gain instrument experience, plus getting to log the time spent as a safety pilot.  Then you can split the costs between you and your partner.

I have no intention of flying for profit until I have my commercial, I was mainly just wondering what sort of opportunities are out there once I have my commercial. Im not sure if I wanna go the flight instructor route. Which would require more ratings.

Travis wrote on Jun 13^th, 2009 at 4:49pm:


Sounds legal to me.

Steve M wrote on Jun 16^th, 2009 at 6:33pm:


Its kind of on the honor system, but trouble awaits for those who pad their logbooks.  The FAA could try to verify your logbook by checking your time against the aircraft logs.  My favorite story of someone getting caught was a guy who worked for an FBO.  Everytime he fueled a plane, he'd write the tail number in his logbook and add time.  Worked for a while, until he had an FAA checkride.  The examiner was looking at his logbook and noted our pilot had flown aircraft N#####.  It was the examiner's personal aircraft that he had owned since new and no one else had flown.