What is hour building?
Hour building is the stage where a pilot who already holds a PPL flies to gain the experience a professional licence requires before starting formal training for it. On the modular route to a UK CPL, for example, a pilot builds towards 150 hours of total flight time, much of it as pilot in command and including a set amount of cross-country flying, before the CPL course itself begins.
The professional licences set experience prerequisites as well as course and test requirements, so a pilot cannot simply enrol on a CPL course straight from a PPL. The modular path deliberately separates the two: build the required hours first, largely under your own command, then convert that experience into a licence through the formal course and skill test.
For the pilot doing it, hour building is a lot of self-organised flying, and for the club or syndicate whose aircraft they are flying, it is a lot of bookings and a running log of hours and cost. Keeping the flight time, the aircraft usage and the billing straight across all of that is where a shared booking and record system earns its place.
Questions people ask
- How many hours do you need to build?
- It depends on the licence and route. The modular route to a UK CPL, for instance, requires a pilot to reach 150 hours of total flight time before the course, with defined amounts of pilot-in-command and cross-country flying. Always work from the current Part-FCL requirement.
- Where do people build hours?
- Usually in a club aircraft or a syndicate they are part of, which is why hour building shows up as steady, self-organised bookings and a growing log of flight time and cost to keep straight.