Hello again everyone! There have been many recent achievements in this community and I would congratulate each member again! On Tuesday, May 24th, 2022, I became a Commercial Pilot! It’s crazy to think that a year ago I hadn’t even taken my private pilot checkride and now I can fly for compensation or hire.
The oral portion of the exam took place on Friday, May 20th, 2022, and lasted almost a hefty three hours. The first half an hour consisted of looking through the maintenance logbook to ensure all inspections were completed and to determine when they were next due. Once we were finished with the maintenance side of things, we dove into my pre-planned cross country. I was told to plan from 1G3-CYYZ, but the route I took was 1G3- (overflying) KBUF-CYYZ. I then explained why I chose this route, which was because flying over Lake Erie would put me out of power-off glide distance for about 20-25 miles. He then asked me to explain how I got my power-off glide distance, and I responded by showing chart in the information manual. We then talked about the altitude I picked and why I did. This then led to fuel burn, hypoxia, maximum elevation figures, and minimum altitudes as defined in 91.119. Since we were looking at the sectional for the route, he asked me some sectional symbology and airspace questions with the airspace weather minimums. I was then given a few scenarios using common/private carriage and wet/dry lease, and was asked if these scenarios would be legal as a commercial pilot. We then went into the power-off glide chart again and read the notes for it. Two of the notes for this specific chart were gear up and propeller fully decreased. This then led into the systems of the plane. I had to explain how the gear in the piper arrow worked and describe which way the hydraulic pump worked when the gear was brought up/down, what held the gear up, and a few more things about the gear. We then moved to the propeller and I explained the propeller governor and the flyweights, and what happened when the prop lever was moved back and pushed forward. We talked about aerodynamics a little and even some requirements for entering and landing in Canada. This then concluded the oral for the day.
We came back a few days later for the flight. When the day of the flight came, the weather was beautiful and ideal for the flight. Light winds out of the NE on the surface which became light and variable aloft. The air was smooth and there was a layer of clouds at 7500’ MSL. Thankfully, these stayed just far enough south that they didn’t interfere with the simulated xc. We departed from Kent, to the NE, to Buffalo, and did the first few legs of the xc. Once we were about 25nm from Kent, we entered our northeastern most practice area, where we spent most of the flight. We set up in the area, transitioned into slow flight, and then began the power on/off stall series. Once those were completed, my examiner was feeling “hypoxic” and only had 15 seconds of consciousness left, so we entered an emergency descent and leveled off at 4500’. From there we did steep turns and chandelles. Once we were leveled off from the chandelles, my engine was failed by the examiner, so I had to find my field and then circle to land. We ended up making the field and landing at 7G8 (Geauga County). We departed again, climbed to 2200’, did 8s on pylons, and then continued to KPOV (Portage County) to do the landings. We performed a short field landing and a power-off 180 at POV and then returned to Kent and did a no-flap landing. 2.0 hours after we took off, I was officially a commercial pilot.
Overall, there were no surprises on either the oral exam or the flight. Everything was right out of the ACS. Since I received my instrument rating on January 21, 2022, I have flown 56.4 hours, putting my total to 211.0 hours of flight time. This summer I hope to complete or at least start my multi-engine add-on, but I might have to wait a while for an instructor, since we currently have a shortage of MEI. I will be starting the CFI course in the fall semester, followed by the CFII course in the spring, and then graduating a year early in the Spring of 2023.
This semester was my busiest yet. I was taking 18 credits while working about 15 hours a week. Most days I would wake up at 5 am to work at 6, have classes all day, then I would finish my flight block at 6:15 pm. I wouldn’t get back to my apartment until nearly 7 some nights, then I had to cook dinner, leaving only an hour or two to do school work so I could be asleep at a decent hour to do it all again the next day. Even though it was my most hectic semester so far, I still got to do some really cool flying adventures. One of my friends from Kent knows a guy who has a Piper Navajo, so we flew up to PCW (Port Clinton) and had lunch at the on-field diner. Later in my flight course, I did a quick cross country to PCW, then I did a quick hop to 3W2 (Put-in-Bay), which is an island on Lake Erie. This was the most challenging airport I’ve landed at so far because of the “short” runway, 50’ trees near the runway, and gusty conditions due to being right next to the lake. Since I had some solo time to burn, I decided to fly down to Ohio State University to visit a couple of my high school friends and have lunch with them. Lastly, I did a flight in great IMC conditions. For this flight, I flew with my instrument instructor and we logged 1.4 of actual IMC. We did the ILS 7 into KLPR (Lorain County), and we broke out the clouds at about 400’ ALG and then reentered the clouds at above 200’ AGL on the departure end. That was my first time taking an approach that low in actual IMC and I can only imagine what it would have been like to take it down to minimums.
Here is a list as of 5/29/22 of my total times if anyone is interested
Total Time: 212.2
Solo: 60.1
Complex: 22.2
Technically Advanced Airplane: 70.4
XC: 61.5
Night: 18.1
IMC: 5.8
Simulated Instrument: 34.1
Dual Received: 148.7
PIC: 152.6
Flights: 163
Pictures from my checkride, then a few of me in action taken a backseater in a 172S and a PA-28R-201, and a picture of Put-In-Bay’s Runway
