Checkrides: ATP multi vs. Commercial multi - UPDATE - PASSED!

ChiefPilot

ChiefPilot

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So I've got a checkride out several weeks to go for an ATP multi-engine land certificate. I've got an commercial multi, and in reading the PTS for the ATP ride it doesn't seem all that different from the commercial ride. There's no Vmc demo and a couple of the altitude/heading tolerances are tighter is about all I'm seeing and of course there is no instructor signoff required for the ATP ride. This is in a Piper Seminole and not for a type rating if that matters.

Could anyone who's been through both rides share their thoughts of how the two compared? I feel like I'm missing something but I'm not sure quite what.
 
I haven't done an ATP ride but my understanding is that it leans more towards IFR than the commercial ride. Steep turns have to be done under the hood and you are required to fly more approaches than the commercial ride.
 
Well my ATP was my totally initial multi, but I had been through the SEL CP and IFR

But from what I remember, minus DA MDA, the whole ride is under the hood, stalls, steep turns, etc.

Biggest part of the ride was the logbook audit lol
 
It's basically an instrument checkride with tighter standards and more in depth knowledge. You should be a master at flying the airplane and know the airplane like the back of your hand.
 
Lots of people have done them in Seminoles which they never flew before that ride.

OP, did you do the whole CPT ground thing?
 
Haven't been through either but the commercial is primarily a visual PTS; the ATP an instrument PTS.

@James331 asks a good question. With a couple of thousand for the CPT training, you'd think the contents of the PTS would be covered.
 
I did do the CTP course and thought the classroom portion was a complete waste of time. The 12 hours of level D sim time was really useful however. I have zero problems with the hood stuff - the Seminole is way more stable than my RV-6A and I have no probs flying an ILS to CAT I mins in that while remaining within the prescribed standards.

Thanks for all the info - maybe I'm overthinking the ATP ride.
 
Did the ATP in a Seneca,mostly IFR flying with engine out.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Haven't been through either but the commercial is primarily a visual PTS; the ATP an instrument PTS.
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That's pretty much it, per the ATP candidates who flew the Seminole I'm flying this summer. Of course I was keeping my Instrument so my Commercial ride was about 2/3 visual and 1/3 instrument also.

My single engine ILS was accidentally called off by the tower (think approach forgot to tell them we were a full stop and they never asked, they just broke us off with a request for an immediate turn out to the southeast at 1 mile with no real opportunity or time to ask again for the full stop) so I had to ask the DPE, "Can I have that other engine back now?" LOL.

If the answer had been "no", or if it had decided it didn't want to come back for any reason, it would have been the second time on the ride I would have had to consider declaring. Haha. And I was thinking about it as he paused for a second and then said, "yes". :)

Single engine landing was then accomplished visually, back at the home 'drome, which kinda made my life easier so I won't complain. Haha. ;)
 
I love how it took 7 replies before someone that actually did it chimmed in. As you can see the only real oral stuff in preflight prep is knowing the airplane. For the flying stuff, you'll have an aborted T/O, steep turns, stalls, engine shutdown and restart, unusual attitudes, hold, two precision approaches(one single engine), two non-precision, circle, missed, landing(from the precision, circle, single engine, and no-flap). Realize the examiner can combine a lot of those tasks. For instance I did a non-precision single engine circle no-flap to a landing. I was worried about the ATP as well and I thought it was actually easier. Its gonna be the same as your commercial multi just more approaches. Of all the powered land airplane FAA checkrides I have taken I thought it was the easiest one.

I think the FAA wrote the ATP PTS they geared it more towards how most people obtain their ATP. For their initial airline check, or getting a type rating for a corporate flight department. Realize some of the stuff in there you aren't even gonna be tested on. He/she isn't gonna make you go out and fly a departure procedure or a STAR.

The oral was SUPER basic cause the examiner knew I would probably never fly the airplane again. Plus lets be honest, the systems on a Seminole are freakin basic. He asked about the fuel system, "Well, two tanks, 55 gallons each, 1 gallon unusable in each, 5 pumps, 1 for the heater, two engine driven, and 2 electric." And that was all the time we spent on that system. Did the same basic number pulling response for the landing gear and electric. Most of the oral was us B.S.ing about our jobs. I studied this and felt WAY over prepared. Don't sweat it man. If you are fine flying instruments, it is gonna be a piece of cake. Not gonna have that commercial fail the engine at 400 ft. crap.
 
Gucci Pilot said:
The oral was SUPER basic cause the examiner knew I would probably never fly the airplane again. Plus lets be honest, the systems on a Seminole are freakin basic. He asked about the fuel system, "Well, two tanks, 55 gallons each, 1 gallon unusable in each, 5 pumps, 1 for the heater, two engine driven, and 2 electric." And that was all the time we spent on that system. Did the same basic number pulling response for the landing gear and electric. Most of the oral was us B.S.ing about our jobs. I studied this and felt WAY over prepared. Don't sweat it man. If you are fine flying instruments, it is gonna be a piece of cake. Not gonna have that commercial fail the engine at 400 ft. crap.
Click to expand...

Ok, cool - this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. The systems on the Seminole are super basic, and I have zero expectations of every flying one again after the ride is done anyway. I found the ATP book useful as well and feel like I've memorized it, which may be bad because the Seminole I have access to was new back when Elvis was king - all steam gauges, switches on the side panels, and more cracks and wrinkles all over than Keith Richards' face. Most of the systems are unchanged however. Thanks again!
 
Gucci Pilot said:
I love how it took 7 replies before someone that actually did it chimmed in.
Click to expand...

Well, you are talking about a ride that only a tiny percentage of pilots ever do. We are a tad "over represented" here on the board by ATPs, comparatively, and many of those took the ride decades ago. Just as a comment on expecting many answers...
 
Gucci Pilot said:
I love how it took 7 replies before someone that actually did it chimmed in. As you can see the only real oral stuff in preflight prep is knowing the airplane. For the flying stuff, you'll have an aborted T/O, steep turns, stalls, engine shutdown and restart, unusual attitudes, hold, two precision approaches(one single engine), two non-precision, circle, missed, landing(from the precision, circle, single engine, and no-flap). Realize the examiner can combine a lot of those tasks. For instance I did a non-precision single engine circle no-flap to a landing. I was worried about the ATP as well and I thought it was actually easier. Its gonna be the same as your commercial multi just more approaches. Of all the powered land airplane FAA checkrides I have taken I thought it was the easiest one.

I think the FAA wrote the ATP PTS they geared it more towards how most people obtain their ATP. For their initial airline check, or getting a type rating for a corporate flight department. Realize some of the stuff in there you aren't even gonna be tested on. He/she isn't gonna make you go out and fly a departure procedure or a STAR.

The oral was SUPER basic cause the examiner knew I would probably never fly the airplane again. Plus lets be honest, the systems on a Seminole are freakin basic. He asked about the fuel system, "Well, two tanks, 55 gallons each, 1 gallon unusable in each, 5 pumps, 1 for the heater, two engine driven, and 2 electric." And that was all the time we spent on that system. Did the same basic number pulling response for the landing gear and electric. Most of the oral was us B.S.ing about our jobs. I studied this and felt WAY over prepared. Don't sweat it man. If you are fine flying instruments, it is gonna be a piece of cake. Not gonna have that commercial fail the engine at 400 ft. crap.
Click to expand...

?

I'm a ATP
 
I'd chip in, but the only thing I remember about my commercial multi checkride is the tail number of the Dutchess, and my AT multi was just another 135 checkride with an engine shutdown and restart added in.

I remember my Single-Engine ATP oral & checkride, though. ;)
 
I did ATP in a very advanced aircraft and thought the whole experience was the easiest most relaxed check ride I've had. So in a Seminole it should be easier than you expect.
 
The only thing I remember about my ATP checkride is that it was very windy and the examiner gave me a chance to reschedule, but I decided to try. It was pretty abbreviated since he was probably not thrilled with being bounced around in a small airplane (Duchess). When he asked to go back to the airport, I thought it would be a discontinuance, but it was not. I passed. The other thing I know is that the Duchess later crashed into Blue Mesa Reservoir killing two CFIs.

I don't remember anything about my multi-engine commercial except that it was in a different Duchess.
 
NJP_MAN said:
I did ATP in a very advanced aircraft and thought the whole experience was the easiest most relaxed check ride I've had. So in a Seminole it should be easier than you expect.
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I remember when I was a student in flight school, the ATP candidates were all worried, exhausted, frayed and nervous to the point of nearly barfing. I thought that the ATP would be the absolute hardest thing in my life.

When it was time for me to get the ATP, I did the written then a month later did the flight part. The examiner was a really laid back person. He made me feel comfortable and relaxed during the oral and the ride. After parking and shutdown, he asked me how I felt. For the first time ever after a checkride, I told him I felt pretty good. He replied that I should feel good because I am no longer a commercial pilot.

Was it easy? I was well prepared, had a great examiner, but he was thorough. We got a little in deeper in the systems than I expected, but I had all the right answers. So in all I thought it was a fairly simple ride, not at all as I was expecting. I was expecting a hard riding by the book exactly on the number + - nothing kind of ride.

I can't imaging doing the ATP now just to get a job flying boxes in a C-402 at night.
 
So a follow-up for posterity now that I took the ride and passed.

The oral portion covering the knowledge items listed in the PTS was very straight forward - surprisingly so. I used a simple airplane (Seminole) but it wasn't as in depth as I remember the commercial multi ride being. We spent a disproportionate amount on airspeeds, Va in particular, since there is something of a puzzler there on the PA44*.

The flying wasn't terribly bad - I didn't fly a super clean flight and had kind of a bad case of checkride-itis but got through it. If you're proficient (not just current) on instruments, it's not that difficult. No autopilot, glass, or anything like that in the Seminole I flew so it was all hand-flown based on raw data. I will say it's the only checkride I've done where I've been disappointed and a little disgusted afterwards, even though I passed. Disappointed because I didn't fly perfect approaches like I can and have done, and disgusted a bit from the clash of styles between myself and the examiner. But I got the right colored slip out of the deal so that's over with.

* If you take the published stall speed at gross and use it to compute the stall speed at the published max load factor of 3.8, you end up with 57*SQRT(3.8) or about 111 KIAS. The published Va for MGTW (3800 pounds), however, is 135 KIAS. Working backwards to find the load factor gives us (135/57)^2 or 5.6. No way to know what will happen if you ball yank at 135KIAS since Va actually gives manufactures lots of leeway. One hint is that 3.8*1.5 is 5.7, which is just a shade larger than the 5.6 figure we found earlier. The theory I put forth is twofold. As is commonly known, there is a 50% strength margin used in structural design, so it could be that Piper decided they would use up most of the safety factor to get more favorable Va numbers. It could also be that the aircraft is actually able to support 5.6G but that doing so would result in a much lower fatigue life given aluminum's unique fatigue characteristics. Either way, I think it got the point across that I understood what Va was all about :)
 
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