Will Fly For Food

Today was a big day.  A REALLY REALLY big day.  In the grand scheme of things, in order to get hired by anyone to fly, you need the following things:

1) Private pilot certificate

2) At least a 2nd Class Medical

3) Instrument rating (airplane)

4) Commercial Multi-Engine Rating

So, there are a multitude of ways to get to that point.  But the end goal needs to be a commercial multi-engine rating.  In case you haven't seen, most commercial aircraft don't usually only have one engine.  In Montana, I got my private pilot certificate and passed my 3rd class medical.  At that time, I figured that I was just going to do this as a hobby.  This summer, as you all read, I decided to take the leap of making this a career.  And that's when I had to start clearing hurdles.

The first hurdle I had to clear was the 2nd/1st class medical.  As many of you may or may not know, I was denied a pilot slot in the Air Force because of a eye condition that was disqualifying for the Air Force.  At that , I felt my dreams disappearing before my eyes.  Bummer.  After doing some research, I learned that my condition isn't even tested by FAA doctors and as long as I have vision corrected to 20/20, I should be fine.  So, at the end of August, I went to the doc and came out with a glowing report.  No issues, no restrictions, no glasses required to fly.  Awesome!  It was a sigh of relief because if something could go horribly wrong at no fault of my own, it would have been there.  First hurdle cleared.

The second hurdle was my multi-engine add-on.  This was more like a speed bump.  After less than a week here, I was able to get a multi-engine rating added to my private pilot's certificate.  The next big hurdle would be my instrument rating.  When I first started thinking about doing this, a lot of my Air Force friends said that it was one of the hardest phases in their training.  After a month of shooting approaches and doing some random cross-country flights, I went in for my instrument check ride and did very well.  Second big hurdle was cleared.  

The next hurdle was what happened today.  In order to make any money as a pilot, I need to have a commercial multi-engine rating.  Without it, the most I could ever do was fly for fun.  Believe me, it's an expensive good time.  So, after I passed my instrument check ride, I hopped right into cross-country flying.  I needed to accumulate 50 hours of pilot-in-command cross-country hours.  It seemed like out of nowhere, I did my 50 hours.  I remember looking at my logbook and seeing that I had just under 200 hours total.  In order to get a commercial rating,  I needed at least 200 hours in an airplane and 50 hours in a simulator.  After a few flights yesterday, I breached the 200 hours mark and today was my check ride. 

To say that I wasn't nervous would be a complete lie.  I went into my oral exam and my examiner started asking me questions.  After getting the answers he needed, he started asking harder and harder questions.  Before I knew it, was asking about advanced aerodynamics.  I struggled a little with those questions, but in all fairness, I didn't prepare for those questions.  Those were the kinds of things that they ask you on your flight instructor check ride, and not typically on your commercial pilot check ride.  He had me teach him a few things.  I was sweating like crazy because I couldn't figure out how I had messed this up.  I thought I went into the check ride more than adequately prepared and yet here I was struggled to answer his questions.  At the end of the check ride, he came clean.  He said that it was obvious that I came into this check ride extremely prepared.  He said he was very happy with my knowledge and started giving me questions that I would expect to see on the certified flight instructor oral.  He told me that he was happy with most of my answers but needed to brush up a little on some things.  RELIEF!  And then it was out to the flight portion.

We flew out on a planned cross-country route and then diverted to a nearby airport as is part of the test standards.  This airport was a cool little flying community.  The runway ran behind a bunch of houses and it felt a little awkward essentially landing in someone's backyard.  After some landings there, we flew out of the Gulf for some maneuvers and before I knew it, we were headed back to St Pete.  After a single-engine landing, I pulled back to parking and turned off the airplane.  My examiner says, "Well, you passed.  I have a few comments but I thought you did really well."  WINNING!!!!!

So, I passed.  I am officially a "commercial pilot."  Granted, I still have my single-engine commercial add-on and my flight instructor, instrument instructor, and multi-engine instructor ratings but those are just icing on the cake.  I'll need to build at least 100 more hours before I am even on the radar of a regional airline or cargo carrier.  Realistically, I'll need 600 hours total.  The light at the end of the tunnel is right ahead of me.  In 3 weeks time, I'll be done with this program and on my way to building time.  

To give you an idea how long that is going to take, my instructors here have been building 100 hours a month flight instructors.  If I go in with 250 hours, you do the math. 

Anyone looking to hire a motivated young pilot?  I'm available starting right now.