Agood friend of mine is a physician and a pilot. (No, there isn’t a Bonanza in his hangar; he happily flies a Mooney Ovation.) I’ve always found him to be a very safety-conscious pilot. He gets an IPC every six months and does other periodic training. When he wanted to do something different, I suggested he get an airline transport pilot certificate with an airplane single-engine land rating. (ATP-SEL) “Why?” was his first reaction. “I don’t need it for the kind of flying I do.”
An ATP is required for Part 121 (scheduled and non-scheduled airline) and most Part 135 (commuter and on-demand) operations. However, 14 CFR 121.159 explicitly forbids the use of single-engine aircraft in Part 121, so an ATP-SEL has admittedly limited incremental uses.
