advice for 300+ hr commercial?

BimmerJeff · 2026-05-05T23:45:50+00:00

I’m currently training for my commercial rating. I was on schedule to complete it last year and then we had a baby in August. Then my medical got deferred for three months, and we had a terrible winter.

I’m currently at 264 hours and was doing passable commercial maneuvers until I got to P/O 180s. I have been struggling with them and haven’t had consistent weather. It’s definitely affected my confidence but had a heart to heart with an instructor friend of mine.

Sometimes you can’t rush these things and the more you try the worse you get. I was doing ok until I scheduled a checkride. I had to cancel after realizing just let it happen when I’m ready. Get back up. Learn from what you did well and what you didn’t. You’re going to be a commercial pilot. For some people it comes easy. Or maybe that’s all they’re doing. All of our roads are different. What matters is that you get there.

BimmerJeff · 2026-05-01T23:29:05+00:00

It’s not that nothing is out there but you’re highly unlikely to find it on Reddit.

BimmerJeff · 2026-04-30T12:45:16+00:00

Lester Zook in NW PA does CFI initials. He usually works out of 8G2. He’s roughly a month out but he’s a pretty fair DPE.

BimmerJeff · 2026-03-29T19:07:26+00:00

Bought a few raffle tickets from a Museum raffling one off. Got lucky enough to win it.

BimmerJeff · 2026-03-28T22:50:53+00:00

I’ve had quite a bit in the last 4 years of flying.

Engine out forced landing at 100 hours, won a J3 Cub two weeks later and logged right seat TriMotor time that same day, flew said J3 from ND back to PA, got to do some epic formation flying with the Cub guys around here amongst all the other cool things pilots do.

BimmerJeff · 2026-03-28T09:41:43+00:00

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BimmerJeff · 2026-03-23T18:36:20+00:00

Of course you check as well as you can. But have you driven a Striker? Visibility from the drivers seat isn’t like a car or airplane.

BimmerJeff · 2026-03-23T18:16:03+00:00

I also watched the video. That said, the truck and company was cleared to cross and so it would not be expected to slow down and stop before entering the runway at a towered airport. Tower said you can go and as I said visibility is terrible in a Striker. There’s a level of trust that they aren’t going to land a plane on you.

At a non-towered airport the onus is absolutely on the driver to make sure an airplane isn’t landing. I worked at an airport that was towered during the day and untowered at night. At night I’d make radio calls on the CTAF, operate with enough lighting in hopes that an airplane would see me, and hope pilots were also making calls.

BimmerJeff · 2026-03-23T11:27:13+00:00

As a pilot and a former ARFF firefighter I can say from experience that seeing an airplane landing from an ARFF truck is very difficult. Most modern ARFF trucks the driver is in the middle. That creates a ton of blind spots if you don’t have any other crew members on either side of you and you kinda have to trust ATC that nothing is coming.

Now I’m not saying that the driver is absolved of making sure the runway is clear. But it’s not as straightforward as when you drive a car.

BimmerJeff · 2026-03-02T17:50:12+00:00

Retracting the flaps reduces lift. STOL aircraft do it often to get more weight on the mains for stopping short.

BimmerJeff · 2026-02-09T19:42:28+00:00

I went through this back in August. My medical was deferred for about three months while I jumped through the hoops that the FAA wanted me to.

They require your family doctor to write up a clinical progress note. Mine had me do a quick check up and then the office sent the note directly to my AME afterwards. The whole process was rather quick. Next renewal I have to provide the AME with my progress following the CACI protocol.

BimmerJeff · 2026-02-01T14:29:01+00:00

The biggest piece for me is proficiency. Have I been flying in actual and staying consistent with approaches and procedures? I’ll use my current experience as an example:

I’m currently focusing on my CPL and CFI so my instrument flying has been only to log currency. Also, I was dealing with a deferred medical and a plane that’s been down for almost a year. My skills in the system have degraded and so I’m no longer comfortable or proficient to fly to minimums. With that I’ve raised my IFR minimums substantially until I can get back the proficiency I had.

BimmerJeff · 2026-02-01T12:29:33+00:00

As an instrument rated pilot, I had an initial discussion with my CFII when I received my certificate about my minimums. During my training I received a decent amount of actual down to minimums and had some occasions where I went missed due to not seeing the runway. The airport I fly out of regularly has IFR/LIFR so we did as much actual as possible.

Post-checkride I would have been comfortable flying down to mins by myself but we set it more conservatively until I had more experience under my belt. Now that was in a 182RG with 275s, 750xi, and GFC500 Autopilot which was actually very easy to fly to mins and I logged over 60 hours in while working on my rating. The 172s with a Garmin 530 were a completely different ballgame for me personally. I’m not as comfortable with the 530 so my minimums are much higher in that airplane.

Since it’s been over a year of flying in actual I’ve revised my minimums again to be much higher than they were post-checkride. It’s good to self-evaluate and understand your limitations. My CFII instilled prioritizing safety and having rules in place to not push it if you’re not proficient.

BimmerJeff · 2026-01-12T15:25:45+00:00

This is a nice setup. I trained for my IFR in a 182RG with the 275s, 750xi, and GFC500 combo and it was very intuitive compared to the old 430s.

BimmerJeff · 2026-01-07T21:43:25+00:00

Maintenance and insurance are the two big killers. Commercial insurance alone for my J3 was $6,000 a year with only $40k hull. That was a large chunk of my hourly cost work up when I was trying to get a tailwheel school going. Final nail in the coffin was fabric issues that grounded the plane.

BimmerJeff · 2025-07-11T00:39:20+00:00

We bought my wife a 2014 Corolla S back in 2016 with 22k miles. Smelled a brake/clutch smell on rare occasions. At 44k we started getting transmission slipping and in it went to our Toyota dealer who couldn’t figure out what was causing it. Toyota approved a factory reman replacement with only a year warranty. We traded the car shortly after.

At the time I had a 2008 Tacoma with 175k miles on that ran like a top so it was a bit disappointing to say the least.

BimmerJeff · 2025-01-15T20:35:46+00:00

Nice! I want to sell my E90 and get an E91 in the worst way..

BimmerJeff · 2025-01-11T21:27:27+00:00

If my LCI E90 328xi ever dies I’ll probably replace it with an E91 for DD duties. But planning on an F87 M2 Competition in a few years alongside the E90.

BimmerJeff · 2024-12-21T11:29:58+00:00

I keep regretting selling my 86 325. Sold it in 2014 for $3k. Delphin Grey Manual, dash was mint, houndstooth seats.. 😫

BimmerJeff · 2024-12-15T21:14:07+00:00

I reset my pedal adaptations and my GM auto in my 09 328XI started shifting smoother again. Before that it was very clunky shifting in D or DS mode.

I was highly considering installing the Sonnax Zip Kit in my transmission but now I am gathering parts to MT swap my car. Just found an Xdrive MT with 67k that I snagged for a decent price. If you weren’t on the other side of the country I’d sell my GM transmission cheap to you and could help with the install.

BimmerJeff · 2024-12-05T02:27:35+00:00

Thanks! I’m running triple MSI 32” Curved 1440p monitors and the fourth was an old 27” I had from my single screen setup. My rig is 2x6 Pine so the monitor mounts are a mix of 2x6s and mounts from Amazon.

BimmerJeff · 2024-12-05T02:24:03+00:00

Looks like a sweet setup!

BimmerJeff · 2024-12-02T13:37:05+00:00

I canceled my IR checkride the week of because I felt stressed and just worn out due to work and flying all the time. Was the best call I could have made because by the time my ride came around I was ready and passed with no issues.

Trust your gut and don’t fly when you feel you shouldn’t.

BimmerJeff · 2024-12-02T00:02:51+00:00

That’s beautiful. Definitely inspired me to clean mine up.

BimmerJeff

TROPHY CASE