AMES Jobs

What the AMES Rating Actually Is (and Why "Jobs" Needs Context)

Before looking at employment, it helps to be precise about what you would be adding to your logbook. In the FAA's Airman Certification Standards, the abbreviation AMES stands for Airplane - Multiengine Sea. It is an aircraft class rating that sits on a pilot certificate. It is not a stand-alone credential with its own question bank, a testing-center appointment, or a published percentage pass mark. If you came here after reading about what AMES is or what AMES stands for, this is the same rating: the multi-engine seaplane class.

That distinction shapes the entire jobs conversation. Almost no employer posts a position titled "AMES holder." Instead, the rating shows up as a qualification line inside a larger job description: a flight instructor who can teach seaplane ratings, a charter pilot who can legally fly a twin on floats, a tour operator who needs pilots comfortable on open water. The rating is a key that opens specific cockpits; it is rarely the job itself.

Where a Multi-engine Seaplane Rating Matters in Hiring

Because the rating is a class addition, its value depends on your starting point. A private pilot adding AMES gains a recreational and personal-flying capability, and may later use it as a stepping stone. A commercial pilot adding AMES gains something more employable, since commercial privileges are what allow flying for compensation or hire. At the airline-transport level, AMES is governed separately by FAA-S-ACS-11A and 14 CFR 61.165, and you should not assume that private or commercial task credit carries over.

The honest summary of the market is that the rating differentiates rather than qualifies in bulk. Multi-engine floatplanes are a niche within a niche: you need water, a seaplane base or suitable operating area, and an operator who runs twin-engine amphibious or float-equipped aircraft. Pilots who hold the rating can be attractive to operators in that niche, but we have not verified hiring volumes, vacancy counts or demand statistics, so treat any claim of a "booming" market with skepticism.

Roles where the rating plausibly appears

• Flight instruction: instructors who add seaplane privileges can broaden the students they serve, though instructing in a given class generally requires the instructor to hold the relevant rating.
• Charter and air-tour flying: operators that fly twin-engine floatplanes or amphibians typically want pilots already qualified in class.
• Ferry and positioning work: moving amphibious or float-equipped twins between bases can require in-class qualification.
• Personal and owner-operator flying: not a job in the payroll sense, but a common reason pilots earn the rating.

For a candid look at whether the investment pays off against these roles, see our analysis of whether the AMES certification is worth it.

Who Operates Multi-engine Seaplanes

Rather than naming specific hiring companies, which would risk stale or unverified claims, it is more useful to think in categories of operator and what each tends to care about.

One practical point: insurers and operators often set requirements beyond the FAA minimum, including minimum total time or time in type. Those requirements are set privately and vary, so confirm them directly rather than assuming the rating alone clears the bar.

The Seaplane Skills Behind the Rating

A hiring manager reading "AMES" on a résumé is inferring a body of skills. Those skills line up closely with the seven topic areas of our preparation index. Note that these seven domains are an unweighted preparation index, not seven official FAA exam domains and not an exhaustive checkride syllabus; the FAA assesses this rating through the applicable airman certification standards. For a deeper walkthrough, see our complete guide to all seven AMES content areas.

The Checkride Path That Gets You Hire-Ready

The route to the rating is not a computerized test. It is an oral/ground and flight practical evaluation conducted by an authorized FAA evaluator, most often a designated pilot examiner. There is no distinct AMES knowledge-test appointment, no fixed question count, no universal timer, and no published AMES-specific pass-rate figure in the reviewed FAA sources. If you are searching for those numbers, our articles on the AMES passing score and AMES pass rate explain why they do not exist in the form many candidates expect.

Passing means performing the applicable tasks successfully and demonstrating aircraft mastery, proficiency and sound judgment. Under 14 CFR 61.43, failing an area fails the practical test. For an additional class rating below ATP, 14 CFR 61.63(c) requires an instructor endorsement of knowledge and proficiency plus the practical test, and it does not prescribe a fixed additional training-hour minimum for this airplane class addition.

What the current ACS tasks look like

The Private Pilot and Commercial Pilot Airplane ACS documents (FAA-S-ACS-6C and FAA-S-ACS-7B) each include an AMES additional-rating task table. The AMES-tagged objectives include:

• Water and Seaplane Characteristics, Seaplane Bases, Maritime Rules, and Aids to Marine Navigation
• Taxiing and Sailing
• Confined Area Takeoff and Maximum Performance Climb, and Confined Area Approach and Landing
• Glassy Water Takeoff and Climb, and Glassy Water Approach and Landing
• Rough Water Takeoff and Climb, and Rough Water Approach and Landing
• Seaplane Post-Landing Procedures

Depending on the table, additional required work can include performance and limitations, systems, preflight, normal takeoff and landing, steep turns, slow flight and stalls, simulated engine failures, one-engine-inoperative maneuvering and the VMC demonstration. For more on the entry conditions, see our guide to AMES requirements and eligibility.

Cost, Credit, and the Held-Rating Trap

No nationwide FAA fee schedule or member/non-member tariff for this rating has been verified, so any price you see comes from an individual training provider rather than the FAA. Two published provider examples illustrate the range, but they are local course packages, not FAA minimum hours or national averages:

Treat these as snapshots, not benchmarks, and read what each package includes. Our AMES certification cost breakdown goes deeper on how to compare packages on a like-for-like basis.

Why your existing ratings change the bill

The ACS task tables make required tasks conditional on what you already hold. An existing AMEL rating earns different task credit than ASEL or ASES. Private and commercial applicants who already hold AMEL without a center-thrust limitation need not supply a seaplane with propeller-feathering capability. The instrument-only Tasks X.C and X.D do not apply when the applicant has no instrument rating or previously demonstrated multiengine instrument proficiency. Task credit, and therefore training time, can vary considerably from one applicant to the next.

Keeping the Privileges Usable

This is not a credential you renew every two years with continuing-education credits. Under 14 CFR 61.19, pilot certificates normally have no expiration date, subject to suspension, revocation, surrender and applicable limitations. What changes over time is whether you are legally able to exercise the privileges.

• Flight review: generally every 24 calendar months under 14 CFR 61.56, with practical-test credit permitted in some cases.
• Passenger-carrying currency: generally three takeoffs and landings within 90 days in the same category and class and applicable type under 14 CFR 61.57, with additional night conditions and exceptions.
• Medical qualification: required according to the type of flying you do.

For job seekers, currency in the seaplane class is itself a selling point. An operator will want evidence that your water time is recent, not just that the rating exists on your certificate somewhere in your past.

What We Can and Cannot Say About Pay

This is the section most readers want, and the honest answer is limited. No AMES-specific salary premium has been verified. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes occupational data for airline and commercial pilots, but that data describes the occupation as a whole, not earnings caused by holding this rating. Attributing a pay figure to AMES would be inventing a causal link that the evidence does not support.

What you can reasonably say is qualitative: the rating can widen the set of aircraft you are eligible to fly for an employer, and it may make you more competitive for water-based flying roles. Whether that translates into higher pay depends on the operator, the route structure, your other qualifications and your negotiating position. For the broader picture, our AMES salary guide lays out what is and is not known.

Sequencing Your Preparation Around Employer Needs

Preparation for a checkride is not like cramming for a computer-based test, so a generic study routine does not fit well. A more useful approach is to order the topics by how they build on one another and by what an evaluator will want to see demonstrated first. The primary reference is the FAA's Seaplane, Skiplane, and Float/Ski Equipped Helicopter Operations Handbook (FAA-H-8083-23); use chapters 1-6 and 8 and set aside chapter 7 (skiplanes) and chapter 9 (helicopters), which do not apply to this rating.

The reasoning is simple: the multi-engine element (engine failure and asymmetrical thrust) only makes sense once you understand how a float-equipped airplane behaves on and off the water, so it belongs after the fundamentals. If your goal is to compress this into a manageable plan, our AMES study guide and one-page AMES cheat sheet give you a structure to build on. If you are unsure how demanding the process is, read how hard the AMES is before committing a schedule.

You can also reinforce the knowledge side with questions on the main practice test site, which is useful for the regulation and principles portions even though the rating itself is assessed in person.

Questions to settle before you chase a seaplane job

1. Which certificate level do I hold, and does it support the kind of flying I want?
2. Which ratings do I already hold, and what task credit do they earn on the applicable ACS table?
3. Does my target operator require time beyond the rating, such as total time or time in type?
4. Is my flight review and passenger currency current in this class?

If you are still orienting yourself on the basics, our overview pages on AMES certification and AMES training are a good place to start, and you can find more practice material here.

Frequently Asked Questions