What planes can you fly without a pilot’s license?

Unpopular opinion but technically correct answer: you can fly any plane without a pilots license.<p>In fact I just saw a Quora question with this exact question and the answer came from a 60 year old pilot that has been flying without a license for 30 years.<p>If you never fly out of a major airport where an FAA inspector can ramp check you, who will ever find out?<p>Please don’t do this.

&gt; You don’t need a license to operate these aircraft because they’re easy enough to fly that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) doesn’t see the need to regulate them.<p>I don&#x27;t think that&#x27;s the reason. The reason is that they are unlikely to hurt anyone besides the pilot in a crash.<p>They can have an engine failure, stall-spin, or fly into a cloud just as readily as any other plane. Those are the biggest risks for GA, and they&#x27;re no easier to handle in an ultralight.

When I was in elementary school (waaaay back in the 80s) I lived way out in BFE where there was a lot of undeveloped land around the school. One weekend, one of the students discovered a crashed ultralight in the fields surrounding the school, and then told his parents about it. There was an company a few miles from the school off of the highway that sold&#x2F;rented ultralights, so the parents called them about it. Apparently, someone walked away from the crash and just decided not to tell anyone about it. As a reward for reporting the location of the &quot;lost&quot; ultralight, the place offered free flights to the kid and parents. The parents said no thanks. It was always one of those stories that stood out as a kid growing up and I hadn&#x27;t thought about that in a really long time.

That covers what you can fly. There are also restrictions on when and where you can fly. These are daytime VFR [1] conditions only, only in uncontrolled airspace, cannot fly over cites or towns or large groups of people, cannot create hazards to other people or property, must yield right of way to other aircraft, and must comply with all FAA NOTAMs [2].<p>[1] Visual Flight Rules. VFR conditions are conditions where you can operate and navigate primarily relying on what you can see outside the aircraft. As opposed to IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) where you can rely entirely on your instruments and do not need to see anything outside.<p>[2] originally Notice to Airmen (now Notice to Air Missions if one wants to take into account female pilots). Notices that the FAA publishes about potential hazards or events that might affect flights. For example if some airspace is temporarily closed because of military activity, there would be a NOTAM to let civilian pilots know that they have to avoid that airspace.

Setting the legalities aside, flying any of these without the training behind a pilot&#x27;s license sounds like a great way to have some fun, right up until you have a really bad day. Maybe you can skip the license---I haven&#x27;t looked at those regs myself---but you can&#x27;t skip the skills.<p>(I&#x27;d also want to take a hard look at the design, parts, and maintenance before I flew something like this---but I don&#x27;t really have the training or experience to do that. I know some people who I might trust to do it for me, but I think they all have A&amp;P certificates. Again, maybe you can take shortcuts &amp; skip the expensive, highly trained mechanic, but that shortcut may not take you where you want to go.)

The Mirocopter SCH-2A meets the FAA requirements so it doesn&#x27;t require a pilots license. You can buy it for $35k on Ebay [0]. It&#x27;s cheaper than most cars and gas wise (5 gallons for 50min for flight time) would make it about the same cost as commuting to work in a car.<p>0. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ebay.com&#x2F;itm&#x2F;354879150317" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ebay.com&#x2F;itm&#x2F;354879150317</a>

This page is SEO-ey, with the &quot;how to&quot; question titles and padding and such. I would have instinctively skipped it coming from Google.<p>...Which is really sad, because it actually reads like a earnest author just trying to make their informative page visible.

There are a few more complete aircraft than what that list has, if interested:<p>Badlands F1 thru F5 models are based on the old Kitfox Lite: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.badlandaircraft.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.badlandaircraft.com&#x2F;</a><p>Merlin Lite is based on the Merlin LSA: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aeromarine-lsa.com&#x2F;merlin-lite&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aeromarine-lsa.com&#x2F;merlin-lite&#x2F;</a><p>Both of those are pretty interesting aircraft more in line with what most people might think of as a full aircraft.

To be honest, I don&#x27;t like pages like this.<p>The only reason this page is here is is to have more content for SEO purposes. The only 2 links on this page are links to other pages on the same website.<p>All it does is pollute search results.

Dunno if it counts as a plane, but you can fly a paramotor (basically a parachute attached to a 2-stroke motor and prop). Cheap to get into and fairly safe, although kinda limited.<p>I looked into it after being treated for depression made it practically impossible to get a private pilots license. The FAA would rather you fly untreated, undiagnosed.<p>Good job, FAA.

Anyone interested in the DIY route might find some value in Peter Sripol&#x27;s Youtube channel.<p>This was his first DIY ultralight build: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;playlist?list=PLAIipq7EZswtld3d8ttKQWQDFLS_e9tNu">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;playlist?list=PLAIipq7EZswtld3d8ttKQ...</a>

Beware: That Piper Super Cub in the cover image requires a license to fly. LOL.

Wow here in Europe you need a license for ultralights as well. Not quite as rigid in terms of requirements and the medical is easier too. But you still need one.<p>I&#x27;ve flown gliders also which meet these criteria too and they need it as well.<p>I think it makes sense though. You can still hurt people on the ground and more importantly, you could endanger other air traffic. Airspace in Europe is too dense for people not to know what they&#x27;re doing. This is why every aircraft needs a mode S transponder now too at the very minimum.

Please actually get lessons to fly unless you have a lot of room to crash and kill only yourself while learning (in which case you probably have enough money for lessons).

Police in the US do not have to have a license to operate anything, including aircraft. In this case, insurance requirements take over though. They may have a legal right to fly but no insurance company would approve operation by anyone but a commercial pilot. I got a few hours in a local police Bell 206 because they needed a commercial pilot to fly while their official pilot only had a private license. Fun!

Hmmm…<p>Australia is heavily regulated, which is good and bad.<p>Unfortunately, due to regulation and other costs; recreational flying - in my experience - is suffering greatly in Australia.<p>I watch a few US youtube channels, including the STOL groups, often in awe.<p>My recreational flying days are likely over, primarily due to cost. Cannot even find hangar space, in west Victoria, within my budget :(<p>Drones (also heavily regulated) and Flight Simulator are all that remain.

The relevant CFR, typically known as Part 103:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ecfr.gov&#x2F;current&#x2F;title-14&#x2F;chapter-I&#x2F;subchapter-F&#x2F;part-103" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ecfr.gov&#x2F;current&#x2F;title-14&#x2F;chapter-I&#x2F;subchapter-F...</a>

I once had dreams of becoming a pilot but the FAA considers adderall a no fly drug, even though it makes me better at everything I do. Because I wasn&#x27;t diagnosed with it by a shrink or psychologist, the FAA doc in Oklahoma told me I could stop taking it for six months and then get my medical but there wasn&#x27;t any way I could do that.<p>Another guy I know who was in the same boat as me, went and got his pilots license in another country (I think Australia) and just flies here without any problems.<p>The FAA needs to let go a little bit, otherwise more and more are going to start violating laws because we are tired of the overreach.<p>Update: Forgot to mention a lot of people that are getting caught up with ADHD or Adderall can go get their sports pilot license but that restricts them to ultralight planes with a max of 2 seats and very low weight limits. The good thing about the sports pilot is it doesn&#x27;t require a medical.

Pretty insane you can fly these with no license or certificates when basically all drones require having your TRUST certificate or full on drone license to fly.

After your solo signoff you can fly alone without a license. Many people do this and never go all the way, they&#x27;ll l fly for years.

My hot take is that hobby pilots are a bunch of selfish assholes creating a bunch of noise and emissions just do they can have fun. So selfish they only started thinking about removing lead from fuel very recently. One of the aircraft is even called a mosquito so the industry is so aware of the issue they&#x27;re making a joke out of it. At least commercial aircraft have a purpose and try to be as quiet as possible. Fuck pilots.

Mosquito XEL looks pretty good to me. Would save me a lot of time on my commute.

Getting insurance is a related question I have (eg for a sport pilot license).

You don&#x27;t even need a plane. PPG is a parachute and a motor.

Does someone know how the situation is in Germany

Additionally:<p>- any plane you’re on board of, where all the licensed pilots on board have become incapacitated.<p>- your instructor’s plane during a flying lesson<p>Programmers should insist on more precision in their rule definitions.

Clickbait. Real Answer Ultralight aircraft.

&gt; the aircraft must weigh less than 254 pounds<p>8-bit?

UA175 and AA11 are 2 that come to mind

this is amazing, I had no idea you could just skip the license if u use a tiny plane.

Having a picture of a Piper Super Cab in the header and gliders with tractor engines in the content, sounds like clickbait. I&#x27;m a big fan of ultralights and paragliding, but they have more in common with gliders than with aircraft. Also, maybe UPO, but simulators teach more about airplanes than those tools.