mtuomi
En-Route
This time thankfully it was the temporary paper one. No plastic was harmed... I got my instrument rating a month ago, so didn't have time to receive the plastic cert.
Bit of history. I decided to get my ratings earlier this year. I asked here for recommendations for Atlanta area CFII's for my Instrument, and got a few good recommendations. I decided to do my instrument with @Lance F , and I enjoyed that a lot. I liked his teaching style, and I decided maybe I should do my commercial as well. Thankfully Lance also has a very nice Mooney M20J, and he said it might be possible to do my CP in it. Now, I didn't have any Mooney time, so doing all the maneuvers in one seemed like quite a task. I had around 4 hours dual complex time from a few rental checkrides and my complex endorsement, so technically I only needed 6 hours with Lance. In those 6 or so hours, we did get all the maneuvers honed to Lance's standards (he has an annoying habit of cutting PTS/ACS standards in half...).
So, passed my Commercial checkride today. Met with Lance at silly-o-clock in the morning (I used to fly to him and PDK-CVC didn't seem like a long way. But I've since sold my plane, and driving there takes much longer than flying...), filed and flew up to Knoxville Downtown. Met with the DPE - same guy I did my IR with - and did the usual IACRA dance. Nothing special about the oral part. The usual stuff, rights/privileges, sectional stuff, constant speed prop, landing gear, talked about the maneuvers required for CPL, speeds, airspace requirements, it went past pretty quickly, and after that it was time to fly.
Preflight, explain different antennas (Lance has a very nice Mooney, so there's plenty of those!), did a normal passenger briefing, and started the flight.
Can I just say - you don't know what HOT means, before you've done a commercial checkride at 90+ degree heat.
First did a soft field takeoff, did a lap around the pattern and started with the power-off 180. Nailed it (stress level dropped down to half after getting this done). Then short field take off/landing, and after this departed the pattern to do the maneuvers. Started with slow flight, leading to clean stall, and this recovered with a power on stall. Climbed up and did the steep spiral. Recovered from the spiral, and did a chandelle to the left. Then found a few houses to do 8's on pylons. I think after the power-off 180, finding good targets for pylons were the hardest bit in the ride. After a few laps of those, started heading back south towards the airport, and did one complete lazy 8. Joined the pattern, landed "just give me a nice normal landing", taxi'd back, shut down (always use the checklist on the commercial ride!), and got the "congratulations".
Had lunch - did some paperwork, filed, and flew back to Atlanta. Had a great flight back, got some actual IMC and flew between buildups using the heading bug of the autopilot. Loved it. All in all, the only thing I was stressed about was the power-off 180. After I got that out of the way, rest of the flight was just fun (and HOT).
Now just need to find a way to get this ticket wet!
Bit of history. I decided to get my ratings earlier this year. I asked here for recommendations for Atlanta area CFII's for my Instrument, and got a few good recommendations. I decided to do my instrument with @Lance F , and I enjoyed that a lot. I liked his teaching style, and I decided maybe I should do my commercial as well. Thankfully Lance also has a very nice Mooney M20J, and he said it might be possible to do my CP in it. Now, I didn't have any Mooney time, so doing all the maneuvers in one seemed like quite a task. I had around 4 hours dual complex time from a few rental checkrides and my complex endorsement, so technically I only needed 6 hours with Lance. In those 6 or so hours, we did get all the maneuvers honed to Lance's standards (he has an annoying habit of cutting PTS/ACS standards in half...).
So, passed my Commercial checkride today. Met with Lance at silly-o-clock in the morning (I used to fly to him and PDK-CVC didn't seem like a long way. But I've since sold my plane, and driving there takes much longer than flying...), filed and flew up to Knoxville Downtown. Met with the DPE - same guy I did my IR with - and did the usual IACRA dance. Nothing special about the oral part. The usual stuff, rights/privileges, sectional stuff, constant speed prop, landing gear, talked about the maneuvers required for CPL, speeds, airspace requirements, it went past pretty quickly, and after that it was time to fly.
Preflight, explain different antennas (Lance has a very nice Mooney, so there's plenty of those!), did a normal passenger briefing, and started the flight.
Can I just say - you don't know what HOT means, before you've done a commercial checkride at 90+ degree heat.
First did a soft field takeoff, did a lap around the pattern and started with the power-off 180. Nailed it (stress level dropped down to half after getting this done). Then short field take off/landing, and after this departed the pattern to do the maneuvers. Started with slow flight, leading to clean stall, and this recovered with a power on stall. Climbed up and did the steep spiral. Recovered from the spiral, and did a chandelle to the left. Then found a few houses to do 8's on pylons. I think after the power-off 180, finding good targets for pylons were the hardest bit in the ride. After a few laps of those, started heading back south towards the airport, and did one complete lazy 8. Joined the pattern, landed "just give me a nice normal landing", taxi'd back, shut down (always use the checklist on the commercial ride!), and got the "congratulations".
Had lunch - did some paperwork, filed, and flew back to Atlanta. Had a great flight back, got some actual IMC and flew between buildups using the heading bug of the autopilot. Loved it. All in all, the only thing I was stressed about was the power-off 180. After I got that out of the way, rest of the flight was just fun (and HOT).
Now just need to find a way to get this ticket wet!
)
