Not a problem. First off, I always thought the Commercial license would be one of the easiest to get, but it turned out to be the hardest part of my training to date. I did the bulk of my training in a Cutlass (172 RG). As far as the oral, I had kind of an old school examiner who informed me to do a cross country from Concord (KJQF) to Manteo NC. Of course he wanted me to use pilotage but he feels cities and towns make the best checkpoints and airports aren't that good. So I ended up plotting a course from Concord-Town of Asheboro-Jordan Lake-Wendell-Tarboro-Edenton-Manteo. I got to the airport early yesterday, checked the weather and put in my WCA and put that with a nice graphical display for the W/B in a binder. We started off the oral with a discussion of the different kinds of hypoxia, and then we had a discussion about special use airspace, how to obtain a special flight permit and then he asked me about the weather. He had me show him how to determine a crosswind component and then he took a look at my cross country. The first thing he asked me was let me see your flight plan, so I showed him my nav log. He said where is your flight plan and I said you are holding it. He started to get testy and he pulled a flight plan form out of his bag. He made me fill it out and then he asked about all of the different kinds of airspace we would encounter from Charlotte NC to the Outer Banks. This route goes through just about all the kinds of airspace you can get, Class B, C, D,E and there are some restricted areas outside of Manteo. After that he says lets fly.
So we go out and do a pre flight. We get in and he says take me to Manteo. I get the weather and we have a pretty stiff cross wind, steady at about 10 knots. Do a normal cross wind take off, and I turn out to the east to find my first checkpoint 40 miles away. He asked me what altitude I had on my flight plan. I told him 9500' but there was a broken layer of clouds at about 5000' so we leveled off about 3500 and he told me what do you want to do first, lazy eights or chandelles. I said how about a few clearing turns first and he just smiled. So I did the first chandelle to the left, and then one to the right. Oh yeah, the turbulence was quite bad yesterday. I was constantly hitting thermals and gaining altitude and losing altitude, and the examiner finally said you are really going to have to fight to keep your wings level and keep your altitude. The chandelles were all at PTS standards, the only thing my examiner told me was to be a bit more aggressive when you start to pitch up after establishing the 30 degrees of bank. Next we did some lazy eights and he got on me for those. He told me I was being to aggressive with them, told me to be lazy with them. He also wouldn't let me use a fixed point on the ground but instead had me looking at the clouds to do them. I had never done them like that, but again, I did them to the PTS standards. We did some slow flight after that, but again, with the wind like it was, I was having to fight with the controls. After that we did a few steep turns and then he told me to find the airport. Found the city of Charlotte and then located Concord. Did an alright approach to land and we got out. He told me what I did right, what I did wrong, told me to hand over my old license and gave me the new paper one.
All and all, I really enjoyed my commercial training. I have a great instructor and we have a great fleet of aircraft. This is my third checkride and I guess my basic advice to everyone is to approach the checkride as a time to learn. Your examiner is gunning for you to pass. I am starting back with the CFI next week and hope to have it finished in the next few months. Even if aviation is just a hobby, I would advise everyone to get a commercial license. It will teach you to fly the airplane at the envelope and help develop you skills.
