Commercial Rating

I need to get my Commercial rating. Can anyone recommend a decent place to get it? NYC, LA or Central Florida areas would be best. I’d like to do it accelerated.

Thanks,

Jeff

In reply to:


… I’d like to do it accelerated…


Jeff, just finished SELComm about a month ago. I can’t recommend a place, being here in California, but I can reinforce your desire to go accelerated. So IMO you are on the right track.
My reasons for favoring the accelerated (this was the first time I had tried it) are that I liked the intensity of the accelerate flying - 12 hr days, either in ground school or flying my a@# off, jumping from plane to plane, etc. and the challenging (in my case 117 degree!) extremely turbulent desert conditions. It was like flying boot camp. It was a very intense, painful, and ultimately rewarding experience - I actually got heat stroke, discontinued the practical the first time and had to come back. All in all, some of the best flying experiences I have had. But I am a bit of a masochist…[:)]
It is not a particularly difficult license…“a Private License on steriods”, some one called it. There are a few things I wish I understood better before going in and a few I knew that helped the process.Here’s some unsolicited advice about the SEL Comm based on my experience. Perhaps it will help:

  1. The easiest part is the flying. If you can fly a Cirrus you can do lazy eights, chandelles, spot landings, etc.
  2. Unless you want to work much harder than necessary, don’t take the practical in a Cirrus. Do it in the accelerated schools 172’s or whatever they are flying. Unless the Cirrus is all you know, then you might give it a whirl. Otherwise the CFI’s and the DE is used to the school’s aircraft and I would stay with their planes.
  3. The oral is the toughest. Know part 61 and 91. Memorize that small orange “Commercial Oral Exam Guide” published by ASA.
  4. Make sure all of your prerequisites are well documented. For example, if the CFI that endorsed your log book failed to include his or her expiration date, then that entry will not count. Read your logbook like a legal document and be sure that every entry applicable to meeting the commercial license requirement is appropriately documented.
  5. Brush up on using the E6B. Refresh doing WCA’s, etc and using the sectional. My skills were a bit rusty from flying the Cirrus. I actually had to think!

Typically the school will want you to have completed all of the preqs and you are just there for polishing and fine tuning. If you want a refresher on the prereqs, here’s a good list.

Valid FAA Medical
Commercial written exam test results
20 hours of DUAL training to include....
    * 10 hours of DUAL complex time
    * 1 two hour DUAL, DAY, VFR, 100 Nm (straight line distance) cross country
    * 1 two hour DUAL, NIGHT, VFR, 100 Nm (straight line distance) cross country
    * 10 hours DUAL Instrument
250 hours of total time
100 hours pilot in command
50 hours cross country PIC
10 hours of solo to include....
    * 1 300 Nm cross country with 3 full stop landings, one of which is 250 Nm straight line distance from the point of departure.
    * 5 hours of NIGHT SOLO, and in those five :
      10 take offs and landings at NIGHT SOLO, at an airport with an operating control tower.

Good Luck! Try to land in a few Red States on the way[;)]

Jacksonville, FL has an accelerated flight school called ATP. Give them a look.

I just completed my commercial in one week at a school that did not have an accelerated program.

I looked at the schools in Florida that offered the accelerated courses and all required that the prerequisites be complete prior to start. (valid medical, FAR 61.129 experience and written complete).

So I completed all the prerequisites (took about 6 months), then I scheduled a local instructors time for 6 hours a day, 1 hour ground school, 2 hours flight in the morning and the same drill for the afternoon with a complex airplane for 4 days in a row. Jepp and Gleim have a syllabus for the Commercial training that we used. On the fifth day I took my check ride.

I liked this approach for several reasons:

  1. I could complete the prerequisites locally and use this task to evaluate local instructors (you will spend a lot of time with this person for one week!) Note that the Florida schools will assign an instructor that you will meet for the first time when you walk in the door.
  2. One morning, the flight was canceled because of weather and I just stayed home and studied for the oral exam (instead of holed up in a hotel room in Florida!)
  3. Well I lied a little, it took more than a week, because there was a problem with the airplane on the fifth day and the check ride was delayed the weekend plus a couple of days while the airplane was fixed, but I was home and not waiting it out in a hotel room.

It was relatively painless.

Call Florida Aviation Career Training in St. Augustine, FL, and ask for Bjorn or Donna (with my best regards). Great folks!

1 904 824 9401

Thanks Cliff. Terrific advice. And I love landing in red states. They’re so charming[;)].

Seriously, does that 20 hours of dual have to be specifically in prep for the Comm. or will past instruction count? I was hoping to do this over a few days’ time.

Jeff

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In reply to:


  1. Unless you want to work much harder than necessary, don’t take the practical in a Cirrus. Do it in the accelerated schools 172’s or whatever they are flying.

For some reason, I was under the impression that the commercial check ride had to be taken in a complex airplane. But I don’t see anything in the regs stating that [just the 10 hours of complex time - 61.129(a)(3)(ii)]. Was my intitial impression wrong or am I not looking at the right reg?

In reply to:


…does that 20 hours of dual have to be specifically in prep for the Comm…


That would be in 61.129(a)(3) which then refers to 61.127(b)(1). These are subject to some interpretation. e.g. 61.127(b)(1)(i)(ii) are Preflight prep and procedures. (iv)Is takeoffs and landings. It does not say when this training needed to occur. It does not say that training in your Cirrus, for example, that could be applied to the Comm, is not applicable. To quote Rafiki from the Lion King, “Look Harder” into these sections and dicuss it with the accelerated school you choose, to see how they interpret these sections and what in your logbook may ar may not be applicable. Thoroughly dissect Subpart “F” and then look at your logbook.

I spent hours going over my logbook and then created a checkoff list with blanks for missing experience. It is much like building a legal case. Here’s a simplified madeup sample of a typical entry in my spreadsheet.

2.5.92 - Bonanza A36, preflight preparation, slowflight, stalls. Meets 61.127 (b)(i) etc. etc. 2.0 hrs. CFI12345123 exp4/2/04

I then placed all of my information of these detailed descriptions of each qualifying entry from the aforementioned spreadsheet (and copies of the various required paperwork, etc) into a binder with plastic covers, and cross referenced the time to colored coded post-it notes placed in my logbook. The whole package could then be easily audited by the DE. The flight school reported it was the most organized presentation they had seen. (Does this qualify me for ACOPA?)

Even with this, there were a few holes that we had to work around, including a few recreated entries due to my failure to log some flights back in the 1980’s. Nothing in the FAR’s says flight time needs to be logged concurrent with the flight.

My bottomline, all this prep saved me a huge amount of time and some money as well…

Thanks, again for the good advice. I did look at the FARs and thus far, I think I pretty much satisfy all of the prerequisites, but as you suggest, I’ll make a checklist and methodically reference what’s required.

Jeff

Jeff: I noticed you have basically flooded the forums, Public,Marketplace and probably Members with a question about getting a Commercial rating. I remember a couple of weeks ago somebody posted a couple of posts in the marketplace and some of the members just ripped him a new one. Has that happened to you? Or do they treat members differently?

I probably overkilled my prep. But it is was a great journey down memory lane. And of course “fortune favors the prepared”…

The school I went to was extremely helpful in getting my paperwork ready, as they want happy customers. I am sure they all work about the same…

Good Luck again! Watch out for “J-land”, you might want to change your N#, they are using SAM’s down there I hear.

Dear Doc,

TheDoc Freedman

I never said I didn’t like “J-Land.” It’s quaint and charming[;)]

I can’t imagine anything worse than not even getting to the oral or checkride because something as simple as paperwork isn’t prepared properly.

Jeff

In reply to:


…Solo means “no body else in the aircraft,” … the long solo cross country can be done under IFR, as nothing is mentioned that it has to be done in VFR conditions as the other dual cross countries require.


Thank you Scott. Excellent clarifications. Learning that “solo” meant, as the lead CFI stated, “no wives, kids or dogs” in the airplane was one of the last minute rejuggling of my logged time I was compelled to make.

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In reply to:


A complex landplane is one having retractable landing gear, flaps, and controllable propeller or turbine-powered.


Scott,

If I have time in the Falcon 900EX level D sim, which is loggable, and logged in my book, does that count for complex time? I know that seems obvious considering the quote above, but would it count towards my required 10 hours? What about my multi time, mostly in a Seneca?

Thanks,

Jeff

Forgot to check the Commercial PTS. Thanks, Scott.

It’s interesting that a 1979 Arrow is ‘complex’, but a Cirrus isn’t.

Jerry

In reply to:


Scott,
If I have time in the Falcon 900EX level D sim, which is loggable, and logged in my book, does that count for complex time? I know that seems obvious considering the quote above, but would it count towards my required 10 hours? What about my multi time, mostly in a Seneca?
Thanks,
Jeff


Jeff,

I seem to remember reading that a jet does not qualify as complex, because it lacks a controllable pitch prop!

  • Mike.