Passed Commercial checkride

DesertNomad

DesertNomad

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DesertNomad
I took my commercial ASEL checkride this week and passed. People often say this was the easiest one, but of my PPL, IR and CPL, I think the IR was the easiest. Maybe because I am a software developer and all the procedural stuff just clicks with me.

As expected, the power-off 180 was my biggest fear but I absolutely nailed it... probably the best one I have ever done. 6 knots of wind about 20 degrees off the runway, so it was a great day for it. I knew coming over the chevrons that I had it perfectly set up... just don't screw it up!
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A bit over two hours on the oral and 1.8 on the Hobbs. In the last month I have made 94 landings, many (most?) with the power off. That sure helped.

For the written, I used Sporty's and scored a 93%. The ASA Oral Prep guide helped some, but so did the FAR/AIM especially parts 91 and 135.

Now on to CFI...
 
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Congratulations- significant accomplishment.
 
Great job, congrats! Any thoughts/reflections on your experience, and recommendations to those of us who have not done commercial training yet?
 
samiamPA said:
Great job, congrats! Any thoughts/reflections on your experience, and recommendations to those of us who have not done commercial training yet?
Click to expand...

Hopefully you can do the checkride in an airplane you are very familiar with. I have about 840 hours, with 660 in my Dakota.

You need to practice the power-off 180 in all kinds of different conditions and with varying techniques... flap settings, staying high/slow vs low/fast. I went out and did a dozen of them one day when the wind was 23G30. Learn your systems well and the commercial privileges (no pizza delivery!). I found chandelles to be relatively easy but Lazy 8s to be harder... you need to learn the power settings that work well especially if you have a high performance airplane. Learn to be precise and smooth - the IFR training should have taught you a lot of this. Some of it is a repeat from the PPL with stricter tolerances which you may need to brush up on.

Work on getting your required experience. I had to really sort out a plan to get my 300 mile solo XC and ended up flying nearly 1200 miles solo by arranging one of my Texas trips to be solo.

Most of my time is long XC flights (I have flown across the USA five or six times and fly from Nevada to Michigan and Texas each year). If your time is like this, it is likely you have not done many of the maneuvers since your PPL training so it may take some time. I spent about 20 hours with a CFI friend over 30 days to perfect everything.
 
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Good work! Now you can add ratings without asterisks being added later about your private privileges in floatplanes or whatever.
 
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