Hour Building
What you choose to do between earning your PPL and starting your CPL can be a defining factor in how your pilot CV is perceived. Use that time well, and you can separate yourself from the crowd. Use it poorly, and you risk blending in with countless others who have fairly standard, unremarkable experience. Hour building isn’t just a box to tick, it’s a genuine opportunity to stand out when it comes to job applications.
Why Hour Building Matters
At this stage, you’ve completed your Private Pilot Licence with not a lot of hours in the grand scheme of your flying experience, you’re still at a very early stage.
To progress, the UK CAA requires a minimum of 150 total flight hours before you can begin CPL training. Beyond that, there are further experience requirements before you can sit the CPL skills test:
Pilot in Command (PIC): 100 hours, including 20 hours of cross-country flying. This must include a VFR cross-country flight of at least 300 NM (540 km), with full-stop landings at two different aerodromes.
Night Rating: 5 hours total, including dual instruction, cross-country navigation, and solo take-offs and landings.
Instrument Time: 10 hours of instrument instruction (some of which may be in a simulator, depending on qualifications).
Most flight schools structure their courses so that students meet these requirements by the end of a CPL/MEIR programme. As a result, typical entry expectations include around 150 total hours, with 100 hours PIC and 20 hours cross-country.
Put simply, hour building exists to bridge the gap between basic training and the level required to begin commercial training, its the time to build up your experience, knowledge and skills.
Going into hour building with the mindset of it just being something to get through as quickly as you can is a big mistake. This phase of training can play a major role in shaping your future opportunities. What you do here could be the difference between getting shortlisted for an interview or being overlooked entirely. Treat it as a core part of your development, not just a numbers game. Proper pre-flight planning, structured practice and challenging yourself is what helps you maximise hour building.
The Typical Route
The most straightforward option is to stay where you trained, rent an aircraft you already know, and build hours locally. It’s comfortable, familiar, and easy to organise.
There’s nothing wrong with it, but it does come with limitations:
You’re likely flying in the same environment, with the same routes, repeatedly
Your experience may lack variety or challenge
From a recruiter’s perspective, it doesn’t say much beyond “met the requirement”
Add to that the realities of UK flying, high hourly costs, weather constraints, and aircraft availability, and it’s easy to see how this phase can become inefficient as well as uninspiring.
I would recommend pushing yourself, get checked-out on different aircraft, fly further, through tricky airspace and land away at difficult airfields.
Building Capability
One of the most effective ways to demonstrate real progression during hour building is by expanding the privileges on your licence. It shows that you haven’t just focused on accumulating hours, but have actively invested in developing your skills as a pilot.
This could involve completing your Night Rating early, allowing you to operate beyond daylight hours and gain confidence in a completely different flying environment. You might also choose to begin working towards an Instrument Rating or IR(R), which introduces you to flying with greater reliance on instruments and opens the door to operating in more varied weather conditions. In addition, seeking out experience on different aircraft types can further broaden your skill set and expose you to different handling characteristics.
Taken together, these steps add genuine depth to your training and clearly demonstrate initiative, something that will always stand out.