Glossary
Commercial Pilot Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential commercial pilot terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key commercial pilot vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in commercial pilot training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- ATP
- Airline transport pilot certificate.
- Checkride
- The practical test for a pilot certificate.
- CRM
- Crew resource management.
- Flight hours
- Logged time used to meet requirements.
- IFR
- Instrument flight rules.
- METAR
- An aviation weather report.
- Multi-engine rating
- Permission to fly aircraft with more than one engine.
- NOTAM
- Notice to air missions with important flight information.
- Part 135
- FAA rules for commuter and on-demand charter operations.
- Part 141
- FAA-approved structured flight school programs.
- Part 61
- FAA rules for pilot certification with flexible training.
- Preflight
- Inspection of an aircraft before flight.
- TAF
- Terminal aerodrome forecast.
- VFR
- Visual flight rules.
- Weight and balance
- Calculating aircraft weight and center of gravity.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Commercial Pilot practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Commercial Pilot training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.