Commercial SEL/CFI

aerospacepilot

aerospacepilot

New Member
My instrument ride is in 6 days, but I am already looking forward to the next step (commercial, CFI/II/MEI)

Here is the scoop. I have 135TT in airplanes and 25TT in gliders (160 hours total). My end goal is to get my commercial single, commercial multi, and CFI/II/MEI ratings. My plan is basically to build some time in a 172. Then I want to do my commercial single and CFI training while building up to 250hrs. When I hit 250, I want to take my commercial single ride, then take my CFI ride in a few days (having done the flight training while building up to 250hrs). Then off to ATP for their comm multi add on/II/MEI course for $4195.

Here are my questions.
How much flight training is usually required to get your commercial single engine?
Do you need to do your checkride in a complex aircraft, or just 10hrs of flight training is complex as required by the FAR's?
How much flight training is usually required to get your CFI (just initial)?

The reason I ask is because I would like to build up time from my current 160hrs before I call my instructor and ask him about starting commercial/CFI training. I would also like to use those 50-60 hours of time building to obtain my tailwheel endorsement, and maybe my commercial glider license.
Thank you,
Aerospacepilot
 
Here is what I did:

First off find out if the examiner is OK with you taking your CSEL from the Right seat. There is no regulatory requirement for which seat the ride is taken from.

Train for the CSEL and CFI at the same time from the right seat.

If you are ready to take a CFI initial, a CSEL is the easy part.

I was originally scheduled to take the CSEL one day then the CFI the next, but with maintenance issues and scheduling they ended up being about 10 days apart.

I can pretty much guarantee that it will be one of the hardest things you do to combine them like that, but I feel it was well worth the effort.

Start studying now, get the Flight Instructor PTS and read everything that is listed as a source in that. All the FAA publications are what you will be expected to know.
 
Good luck on your Instrument check ride, I passed mine two weeks ago and it's a great feeling to get it over with. Find a friend who has a airplane and spilt the cost that the best way to go. Or you can rent an airplane and then find a safety pilot to spilt the cost. I would recommend building your flight hours until you get to 240 hours then start your commercial training, since you need ten hours of complex time. On the commercial check ride you need to fly a complex aircraft when doing the landing phase, but the maneuvers you can do it in a C172, but I think the FAA is trying to change that. Good Luck!!
 
bdhill...did you take your initial cfi and commercial rides together part 61 with an faa examiner? reason i'm asking is that i had an applicant want to take a commercial single-engine land add-on (he's a commercial multi, c-130 air force pilot) and a cfi ride together and the designated examiner i selected said it's two separate rides. maybe it's at his discretion. at any rate, he just did the first. he was already a glider cfi, so he wasn't required to go with the feds for initial cfi..and he decided to hold off on his airplane cfi anyway for now.
 
exleardriver said:
bdhill...did you take your initial cfi and commercial rides together part 61 with an faa examiner? reason i'm asking is that i had an applicant want to take a commercial single-engine land add-on (he's a commercial multi, c-130 air force pilot) and a cfi ride together and the designated examiner i selected said it's two separate rides. maybe it's at his discretion. at any rate, he just did the first. he was already a glider cfi, so he wasn't required to go with the feds for initial cfi..and he decided to hold off on his airplane cfi anyway for now.
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Well it would depend on which Class he is wanting the CFI in? If he was doing his CFI-MEI I would think that is fine since he already has his CMEL. However he couldn't go for a CFI-SEL without a CSEL as far as I know.
 
exleardriver said:
bdhill...did you take your initial cfi and commercial rides together part 61 with an faa examiner? reason i'm asking is that i had an applicant want to take a commercial single-engine land add-on (he's a commercial multi, c-130 air force pilot) and a cfi ride together and the designated examiner i selected said it's two separate rides. maybe it's at his discretion. at any rate, he just did the first. he was already a glider cfi, so he wasn't required to go with the feds for initial cfi..and he decided to hold off on his airplane cfi anyway for now.
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They were two separate rides, part 61. Both were with the same DPE. At the time the SLC FSDO was really understaffed so they were farming out just about everything to DPEs. It definately made the CFI ride easier to have done the commercial with him since he already knew the areas that I was pretty strong in and didn't spend a bunch of time on them; still was tough though. But even if I had ended up doing the CSEL with a DPE and then the CFI with the FSDO I still think it would have saved me a ton of time and money training for the CSEL in the right seat. Honestly I tried flying our Arrow from the left seat the other day (Commercial student doing it the way I did) and it was weird; actually being able to read the gauges clearly and being able to see the runway on a left power off 180:panic:
 
Aerospace,

I did what others have mentioned: Combined commercial and cfi training. At the school I chose, I taught ground lessons on everything in the CFI PTS, which covers pretty much everything in the commercial PTS. When ground school was over, I flew 10 hour from the right seat in a C172RG, took my commercial checkride, and will be taking my CFI checkride next week (two weeks in between waiting for the San Antonio FSDO to schedule me).

By the time you get close to 250 hours, you'll probably be fairly proficient at flying the airplane and the maneuvers will not be too challenging. Start talking through maneuvers (or approaches or whatever) while you do them if you want a head start. Just pretend that you're teaching your safety pilot or the imaginary person sitting next to you. I thought it would be easy, but when you're trying your darndest to fly the perfect steep turn or chandelle or whatever, you'll have a tendency to zone in and forget that as a CFI, you're supposed to be instructing.

If you've got a competent safety pilot, have the guy sitting in the right seat take a few landings every once in a while. I didn't find the transition that difficult, but if you can get a head start, why not?

Depending on where you plan on instructing, you might consider getting your PPL AMEL if they've got a twin. My school requires 25 hours in the Duchess before you can instruct in it, so if you have to get up to 250 hours for your commercial anyway, you can save some cash by getting that time enroute to 250.

Fly with your safety pilot at night. It's "better time" than day VFR. Fly IFR a lot if you can afford to not split the time with a safety pilot.

Go do some aerobatics if you've got extra cash.

As the first step in your CFI training, can you tell me where in the FARs you can find the answer to your "flight instructor requirements" question?
 
bdhill...interesting. your initial cfi was with a dpe and not an faa examiner. here, our pilots have to do their initial cfi rides with the faa. the cfii or mei can be done by a dpe. i actually elected to do my multi and mei with the faa simply because they didn't charge a fee. i wonder if this just varies from fsdo to fsdo with regards to initial applicants.
 
exleardriver said:
bdhill...interesting. your initial cfi was with a dpe and not an faa examiner. here, our pilots have to do their initial cfi rides with the faa. the cfii or mei can be done by a dpe. i actually elected to do my multi and mei with the faa simply because they didn't charge a fee. i wonder if this just varies from fsdo to fsdo with regards to initial applicants.
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When I was getting ready for my CFI ride it seemed the FAA was changing their stance nationwide on who got to do initial rides.

But the plus side on going with them is it's free!
 
exleardriver said:
bdhill...interesting. your initial cfi was with a dpe and not an faa examiner. here, our pilots have to do their initial cfi rides with the faa. the cfii or mei can be done by a dpe. i actually elected to do my multi and mei with the faa simply because they didn't charge a fee. i wonder if this just varies from fsdo to fsdo with regards to initial applicants.
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The FSDO has the first option on initial CFI rides to do it with the FSDO or to allow a DPE to do it. I had to get permission from the FSDO chief to take the ride with the DPE. I have heard that in the last month or so that the SLC FSDO has stopped farming them out, I heard that they have hired and trained more FAA examiners so they can handle the workload better now.

Honestly it made life a lot easier to take a ride with somebody that I already knew and he already knew me. He still grilled me pretty hard on some things, but the areas that I did really well on in the commercial ride he didn't harp on much.
 
bdhill - ah, i see. here in arkansas we have an abundance of faa examiners..AND dpe's. i'm looking to perhaps go the dpe route myself in a couple of years, as some retire. i'm 41 now so i've got plenty of time. how much do dpe's charge in slc area? around here it's usually $300 a checkride.
 
Mine was the same situation as bdhill's with regard to FSDO airmen and DPE. In Oklahoma we have to call the FSDO to schedule our CFI's but since OK is so backed up, we have 2 examiners, checkrides are taking 3 weeks - 1 month to get a ride from the call of scheduling it. Mine was scheduled at 3 weeks and then 2 days later they called me telling me I could take it with a DPE and took the ride 3 days later.

My CFI Initial was $550. Most DPEs in the area are about $250 but that doesn't include CFI's.
 
exleardriver said:
bdhill - ah, i see. here in arkansas we have an abundance of faa examiners..AND dpe's. i'm looking to perhaps go the dpe route myself in a couple of years, as some retire. i'm 41 now so i've got plenty of time. how much do dpe's charge in slc area? around here it's usually $300 a checkride.
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$350 is the average rate depending on who it is and what ride it is.

Mine charged $350 for the CSEL and $500 for the CFI.

Of course all of them say "Cash only"; wonder if that it getting reported to the tax man
 
exleardriver said:
bdhill..lol. yeah, i've had more than one tell me to pass on to my students, "cash preferred"..
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I have heard of one that an applicant showed up with a checkbook and the examiner discontinued right there. For that, and many other reasons I won't send a student to that guy unless all the other examiners are busy for more than a month out.
 
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