jesse
Touchdown! Greaser!
I've had a few people bug me to write this...so here it is 
It was about three weeks ago when I decided to get the commercial pilots certificate. I was looking through the requirements and came to the realization that it wouldn't take much to obtain. At first I thought it'd be cheaper to just travel somewhere and knock it out over a long weekend but I couldn't find any program that sounded reasonable - everyone had a really long syllabus. I finally decided to just do it locally in a Debonair.
A few days worth of studying and the written was taken care of. From there it took a few weeks to get the flying in (about 4 flights in the Debonair) and another week to schedule the checkride. The weather this time of year just doesn't accommodate quick training.
The insurance company won't add me as a named pilot, and the open pilot clause is insane, so I still can't fly it solo. Clay (taters) accompanied me to the checkride in St Joseph. It was good to see that the examiner, Chet Edwards, whom I did my instrument with was still kicking at 89 years old. It turned out that the biggest challenge of the checkride wouldn't be the oral or the flying, it was IACRA. We went through the oral portion which touched a little on CG, required instruments, and some other things. After that we spent a solid two hours trying to get through IACRA which kept blowing up with fatal exceptions. They finally escalated our case up through the chain and we went flying while they tried to figure out what was wrong.
We departed St. Joseph and headed out to the southwest on the cross country, which I had to plan to Amarillo Texas the night before. We went to the first checkpoint, confirmed I was on course, and talked about diversions and started the maneuvers. First up was the lazy eights which went off without a hitch (practiced them on the way there), followed by slow flight, maneuvering in slow flight, power off stalls, power on stalls, and some other stuff I probably forgot. After all that we flew around for a bit looking for pylons and went through that. I thought it looked about perfect, but after the checkride, he said it was my weakest area. Who knows.
We then headed back to St Joseph and I demonstrated various landings and takeoffs followed by the final part of the checkride, the power-off 180. Tower switched me to right traffic when I informed them it would be a short approach, which I really appreciated (not). I pulled the power abeam the desired touchdown point, started my base turn, and dropped the gear. Somehow I misjudged this a bit and realized I was low. I had to really tighten things up and made my base to final turn at a rather low altitude while dropping flaps in ground effect trying to stretch it as far as I could. I got every last bit of energy I could out of the airplane before the wheels kissed down on the runway - it was close enough.
We taxied back, spent another hour or two battling IACRA, and I was a commercial pilot. Time to start studying for the CFI...
It was about three weeks ago when I decided to get the commercial pilots certificate. I was looking through the requirements and came to the realization that it wouldn't take much to obtain. At first I thought it'd be cheaper to just travel somewhere and knock it out over a long weekend but I couldn't find any program that sounded reasonable - everyone had a really long syllabus. I finally decided to just do it locally in a Debonair.
A few days worth of studying and the written was taken care of. From there it took a few weeks to get the flying in (about 4 flights in the Debonair) and another week to schedule the checkride. The weather this time of year just doesn't accommodate quick training.
The insurance company won't add me as a named pilot, and the open pilot clause is insane, so I still can't fly it solo. Clay (taters) accompanied me to the checkride in St Joseph. It was good to see that the examiner, Chet Edwards, whom I did my instrument with was still kicking at 89 years old. It turned out that the biggest challenge of the checkride wouldn't be the oral or the flying, it was IACRA. We went through the oral portion which touched a little on CG, required instruments, and some other things. After that we spent a solid two hours trying to get through IACRA which kept blowing up with fatal exceptions. They finally escalated our case up through the chain and we went flying while they tried to figure out what was wrong.
We departed St. Joseph and headed out to the southwest on the cross country, which I had to plan to Amarillo Texas the night before. We went to the first checkpoint, confirmed I was on course, and talked about diversions and started the maneuvers. First up was the lazy eights which went off without a hitch (practiced them on the way there), followed by slow flight, maneuvering in slow flight, power off stalls, power on stalls, and some other stuff I probably forgot. After all that we flew around for a bit looking for pylons and went through that. I thought it looked about perfect, but after the checkride, he said it was my weakest area. Who knows.
We then headed back to St Joseph and I demonstrated various landings and takeoffs followed by the final part of the checkride, the power-off 180. Tower switched me to right traffic when I informed them it would be a short approach, which I really appreciated (not). I pulled the power abeam the desired touchdown point, started my base turn, and dropped the gear. Somehow I misjudged this a bit and realized I was low. I had to really tighten things up and made my base to final turn at a rather low altitude while dropping flaps in ground effect trying to stretch it as far as I could. I got every last bit of energy I could out of the airplane before the wheels kissed down on the runway - it was close enough.
We taxied back, spent another hour or two battling IACRA, and I was a commercial pilot. Time to start studying for the CFI...
