Thanks to some unexpected time off from work, I was able to get my commercial add-on over the past few days instead of having to wait until April. I really enjoyed the program and told the Dash Aviation guys I would put out a good word for them. So here goes.
Showed up on day one at 8am and started ground school right off. My instructor was one of the owners and is a 767 United Airlines pilot. We went over some multi-engine operations stuff and then went into the Duchess systems. We then briefed for our first flight which consisted of stalls, steep turns, emergency descent and normal/short field take-off/landings. I had never flown a twin before and really enjoyed the extra visibility and speed. After landing we broke for lunch and then started up on ground school again. This session we focused on performance, VMC, critical engines, and all the maneuvers we didn't perform on the morning flight. Then it was off to the Redbird! Being my first sim experience, I wasn't sure what to expect. At first it was a little sensitive, but after spending about 5 minutes getting used to it I found it to be an excellent training aid. During the 2 1.5 hour sim blocks we were able to perform about 30-40 engine out scenarios and numerous 1 and 2 engine approaches with all sorts of weather scenarios. We also performed all of the maneuvers that are required on the check ride before doing them in the actual airplane. You can really feel the yaw in the sim when the engine quits, and the visuals looked like something out of microsoft x-plane.
The next morning we flew our second airplane flight, this time performing all of the engine-out maneuvers, VMC demo, s/e ILS and a complete engine shutdown. It was pretty crazy flying around with that prop stopped out there!! We landed and broke for lunch, then went up for a "mock-check ride" which was basically a run through of all of the required maneuvers. I needed a little touch-up with my stalls and VMC demo, but everything else went great.
The next morning we flew up to meet the examiner at a nearby airport. The oral was a breeze as we just discussed some performance figures and a few duchess systems. Probably about 40 min. total including all the IACRA stuff. We got in the plane for the flight test. I got a engine failure on the take-off roll and aborted, then and engine failure at about 900 ft agl. We did some stalls, steep turns and VMC demo followed by an engine shutdown/restart with the foggles on. Vectored for a S/E ILS to a full stop and that was it!! Most laid back test I have ever taken. I had another .9 hrs left to get my 7 hours that the course comes with so we took the scenic route back to Sanford and I got to log some PIC time.
Overall it was a great experience and would recommend Dash Aviation to anyone.