The Commercial was certainly a fun one. I arrived at the DPE’s office at 1pm and he was ready to get started. The logbook audit, paperwork, test overview etc., took about 30 minutes or so and then the oral began. It was definitely right down the ACS and lots of stuff that’s more or less review from Private Pilot, with the whole privileges of the CPL certificate thrown in there. Calculating a weight and balance, performance charts, flight planning, lots of weather etc. Not really a whole lot to write home about for the oral.
The flight portion was most interesting. I did the preflight and we hopped in and did a short field takeoff out of FGU and this was where the dead reckoning and pilotage began. We flew up to RZR and I was off by about 2.5 minutes on the time I originally told him (with standards). He took me smack dab over RZR at 3000 and pulled my throttle and said to put him on the thousands. This was the emergency descent and also counted for my power-off 180, which was really a power off 360 (
). From here we did the series of landings and then departed to the east for the 8’s on pylons. I picked two perfectly spaced silos, but I think the pressure of having the DPE aboard made me loose the second pylon as I rolled out, so luckily a nice high tension power line was right below and was within the 3-5 seconds of wings level so I used that instead. Got that maneuver done and then we climbed up for the others. The chandelles were always my favorite, so of course those were easiest. Stalls, slow flight, steep turns, emergency spiral, diversion, lost procedures, accelerated stall and back home. Definitely a Private ride on steroids. Again, not a ton to write home about, it was right down the ACS. Lots of fun!
The flight portion was most interesting. I did the preflight and we hopped in and did a short field takeoff out of FGU and this was where the dead reckoning and pilotage began. We flew up to RZR and I was off by about 2.5 minutes on the time I originally told him (with standards). He took me smack dab over RZR at 3000 and pulled my throttle and said to put him on the thousands. This was the emergency descent and also counted for my power-off 180, which was really a power off 360 (
). From here we did the series of landings and then departed to the east for the 8’s on pylons. I picked two perfectly spaced silos, but I think the pressure of having the DPE aboard made me loose the second pylon as I rolled out, so luckily a nice high tension power line was right below and was within the 3-5 seconds of wings level so I used that instead. Got that maneuver done and then we climbed up for the others. The chandelles were always my favorite, so of course those were easiest. Stalls, slow flight, steep turns, emergency spiral, diversion, lost procedures, accelerated stall and back home. Definitely a Private ride on steroids. Again, not a ton to write home about, it was right down the ACS. Lots of fun!
