FAA Pilot Rating Skill Matrix

Role-playing computer games often have a complex matrix of skills, some of which are pre-requesites for others and so on. I thought it would be fun to cast FAA pilot certificates in that framework. The gray boxes at the top of the table are not certificates; they enumerate "category" and "class" of aircraft with respect to certificates.

You don't necessarily have to have ratings at the top of the table to get ratings below, but you generally move down the table. You are required, however, to have both the commercial and instrument rating for a category and class before getting the corresponding air transport pilot rating.

I have left out recreational pilot certificates and sport pilot certificates here, because those ratings (if obtained) tend to be the only ratings that someone gets, vs. wheras getting a private pilot certificate is often obtained on the way to higher ratings.

The gray boxes at the top of the table are category and class labels. All boxes in the table below that are ratings or certificates (that is, they require a specific, formal action by the FAA) with the exception of endorsements, which are merely placed in your log book by an instructor.

I will encode this table with ratings that I myself possess. I have encoded "private pilot: single engine land" as

green

because I passed my check ride on August 19, 2007. The tailwheel endorsement is encoded

yellow

to indicate that I'm training for that rating. Ratings colored in

cyan

are ratings that I might get someday. The number of private pilot ratings I'd like are probably exaggerated; for some of those, the corresponding sport pilot rating would allow me to do anything I'd want.