King of the Wilderness

Chapter 487: Chapter 270: Pilot License

”If your engine suddenly stalls in mid-air, what are your steps for handling the situation? Please recite each action and the corresponding checklist in order.”

If you fail the oral exam, you don’t even get the chance to board the plane.

Stage three: Practical flight exam.

This is the ultimate test. Under the watchful eye of the examiner, you need to demonstrate all the skills required of a qualified pilot.

This includes pre-flight preparations, from obtaining weather briefings to conducting aircraft inspections, starting the engine, engaging in proper air-to-ground communication with the tower using standard aviation terminology—concise and accurate.

Basic flight operations: stable take-offs, precise landings, steady level flights, coordinated turns, and consistent climbs and descents.

Airport procedures: standard takeoff and landing pattern flights, including the upwind, crosswind, downwind, base leg, and final approach phases, each with strict standards for altitude, speed, and operation.

Precision maneuvers: within the mandated altitude and speed, completing 45-degree steep turns, controlled slow flight at stall critical points, and most critically, safely recovering from a stall.

And most importantly—emergency procedure handling.

The examiner will unexpectedly throttle back to idle and coldly say: ”Your engine has just malfunctioned.”

You must react immediately within seconds, maintaining optimal glide speed, searching for the best emergency landing site, executing the engine restart checklist in the air, and issuing a Mayday distress signal to the controller before simulating a crash landing.

Only when the examiner tells you after landing the words every flight student dreams of—”Congratulations, you are now a pilot.”—will you truly have earned your ticket to the sky.

And this is only the beginning.

Lin Yu’an’s goals go far beyond this; in his mind, a clear path for the upgrade of a pilot’s license unfolds.

Step one: PPL (Private Pilot License—Single-engine Land).

This is his current entry-level goal, akin to a private car driver’s license, allowing him to fly specific types of aircraft carrying family and friends, but not for commercial profit.

Eligibility: Must be at least 17 years old, capable of reading, speaking, and writing fluent English, and passing the FAA third-class medical exam to obtain an aviation medical certificate.

The core requirement is completing at least 40 flight training hours, including at least 20 hours with an instructor and 10 hours solo flying.

Lin Yu’an quickly calculates the tuition in his mind, with flight instructor fees ranging from $60 to $80 per hour.

Although regulations require a minimum of 40 hours, the average time to obtain a license across All of America is approximately 60 to 70 hours.

Exam fees: written tests about $175, and the oral and practical flight exams require a substantial payment to the examiner, usually between $800 and $1200.

He estimates that obtaining this first and most basic license will cost up to $20,000. To him now, this money is insignificant.

Step two: IR (Instrument Rating).

With an IR, he can legally fly (IFR) in clouds or under poor visibility conditions relying solely on instruments.

For those aiming to achieve all-weather free flying in Alaska’s volatile weather, this is a crucial skill. Without it, flying freedom is only effective in sunny weather.

Eligibility: Must first hold a PPL, and needs at least 50 hours of cross-country solo time and 40 hours of simulated or actual instrument flight training.

Cost estimate: This is another significant investment. Instrument flight training requires more from instructors and sometimes uses more expensive flight simulators.

Flight training cost: 40 hours x ($180 aircraft + $80 instructor) = $10,400.

Exam fees: includes both written and practical exams, approximately $1,500.

Total: obtaining an IR costs around $14,000 additional.

Step three: CPL (Commercial Pilot License).

Upon obtaining the CPL, he can become a professional pilot, earning money through flying.

For example, becoming a jungle airplane guide or, like Hank, running his air transport service. This is akin to a truck or taxi driver’s license.

Eligibility: Must be at least 18 years old and pass a stricter FAA second-class medical exam. The key is accumulating flight experience, with total flight time needing to reach 250 hours.

Cost estimate: This is the most ”money-burning” phase from PPL to CPL— accumulating flight hours.

From 70 hours obtained after PPL to 250 hours required for CPL, there’s a vast gap of 180 hours needing to be filled with real money.

Hourly accumulation cost: 180 hours x $180/hour (aircraft rental only) = $32,400.

CPL specialty training fee: approximately 20 hours of commercial flight subject training, costing around $5,000.

Exam fees: approximately $1,500.

Total: from IR to CPL, this crucial step will cost around $40,000.

Then comes the pinnacle of professional flying: ATP (Airline Transport Pilot License).

This is the highest level of license to become an airline captain. Lin Yu’an isn’t interested in this but knows the hardship of this path.

Eligibility requirements: be at least 23 years old, pass the strictest first-class medical exam, and accumulate 1,500 total flight hours.

From 250 hours to 1,500 hours, the 1,250-hour gap is a chasm many pilots need years to fill through roles like flight instructor or regional pilot.

Besides vertical license advancements, there are horizontal skill expansions, like skill points in games unlocking the types of aircraft you can pilot.

Tailwheel endorsement: essential for flying classics like the Super Cub. Requires around 10 hours of specialized training, costing about $2,500.

Seaplane rating: In Alaska, being able to take off and land on lakes and rivers means unparalleled freedom. Training fees are expensive, usually between $5,000 and $8,000.

Multi-engine rating: Want to fly twin-engine aircraft? Be ready for around $5,000 in training fees.

And one of Lin Yu’an’s ultimate goals, piloting helicopters, requires transitioning to an entirely new aircraft category.

He needs to attend flight school after obtaining his fixed-wing license to learn helicopter piloting from scratch.

The operational logic of helicopters is vastly different from fixed-wing planes.

It requires using both hands and feet, coordinating collective pitch (controlling elevation), cyclic pitch (controlling fore/aft/side-to-side), and pedals (anti-torque), all extremely challenging.

Moreover, it’s extremely costly; a Robinson R22 helicopter used for instruction has a wet rental cost of as high as $300-$400 per hour.

Obtaining a helicopter PPL typically requires 60-80 hours, quickly totaling over $30,000. To further obtain a commercial license, that’s another journey in the tens of thousands of US Dollars.

All these unfold like a grand and complex painting in Lin Yu’an’s mind.

He quickly calculates mentally if he were to achieve all the core skills he’s envisioned.

Commercial fixed-wing, instrument rating, seaplane, tailwheel endorsement, plus a helicopter private license, total costs will easily break the $100,000 mark.

This is a long, costly, and challenging journey. Behind every license, rating, endorsement are tens or even hundreds of hours of rigorous training and countless stringent exams.

But at this moment, sitting by the warm fireplace and listening to the howling wind and snow outside, Lin Yu’an feels no fear, instead, he is filled with unprecedented passionate yearning.

He closes the book, organizes the knowledge in his mind, then picks up the Private Pilot License Exam Guide and turns to the mock exam section.

His task is to compress every knowledge point from this treasure trove of thousands of questions into the bullet chamber of his memory until forming muscle memory-like instinctive reactions.

Because he knows, at thirty-thousand feet in the sky, when emergencies occur, what saves your life are these deeply ingrained knowledge points and your repeatedly tempered flight instincts.

This is the only path to true freedom.