After having my usual BE-76 go down the day before my checkride I was able to go to a competitor and use their BE-76 for my checkride on Friday.

It was a long day and I got to the airport at 10am to do my checkout in the other fbo's duchess which was the rental agreement, a written exam and then a 1.1 flight with their chief pilot, immediately after landing my examiner was already there (he knew the situation and understood I would be there a few minutes after him) After a 2 hour oral and a 1.3 flight it was all over at 5:30 in the afternoon. Overall it was a great flight and great experience and a fun chapter towards a career. I am doing the remainder of my ratings back to back so I am looking forward to the commercials.

I am glad I had to do the checkout beforehand because this airplane performed differently than my usual plane. On my regular plane for a shortfield I come in at the required 76 kts and pull power in the flare and settle right on my point (pulling power beforhand causes the plane to drop out of the sky) In the plane I took the exam in for my checkout shortfield I pulled power at 76 kts and it climbed right out to 20'agl, the instructor told me that the plane lands like a cessna 152. For my next shortfield and the one in the checkride I pulled all power well before the threshold and glided in and flared just like a small cessna, it did not drop out of the sky as my other plane would have..oh well thats the way it is I guess. It was neat to see the differences between the two same model airplanes. I think it was an airspeed difference, although it was indicating 76 knts I believe we were probably more or less at 80 +/- a few.

forgot to mention that my plane is very nicely equipped with a garmin 430 stack and a sandel EHSI and all equipment no older than 3 years. The plane I took the exam in had old avionics that were probably original in the airplane, no digital anything with an old adf and an old quirky hsi. It was interesting to see first hand how little to no difference the avionics made at all. The newer stuff is nice to have of course but it really does not make a bit of difference, just a waste of money to pay to have all the fancy avionics

Congratulations on the ticket. It is amazing how two of the same plane can fly so differently. I've been burned by that myself!! Good luck!


J

Congratulations on your new rating!
However, I must ask why you did your private multi first, instead of getting your Commercial ASEL and then adding your multi on to that.

Congradulations and I agree with you about the avionics. I have been flying for ten years and am just now learning how to use a GPS

popa-
The reason I did my private multi first is because I am doing it under VA part 141 so the duchess is approved for all of the ratings. I am doing all but my CSEL in the twin while 60% of it is paid by the VA to avoid potentially having to buy a block of it down the road and having 100% of it come out of pocket.

When I finish my ratings I am going to stay on as an instructor at my FBO and hopefully get enough multi hours to stay proficient and have a recency of experience. For me personally It is worth the money and I dont run a chance of having to pay the big bucks for safety pilot time down the road.

Those PIC hours while working on your comm will only help when it comes time to get your MEI (If you're going that route). I wish I had done that. Now I get to drop about $2k buying time before I can even think about starting to work on my MEI.

Good thinking!

pilotpip,
I am actually going to do my other instructor ratings in the twin as well, I am hoping that it does help because I know many friends who have gone to do their MEI with very few hours in the plane they are taking the exam in. I plan to hopefully have around 75-90 or so non safety pilot PIC time in the same plane I will be doing my mei in so by then I should be pretty sturdy and confident in that airplanes abilities and hopefully get it to do what I want it to. I also heard from someone a good idea which I am going to try, on a few of my commercial flights I will fly from the right seat with my instructor to get an early start on the feel for it.

It's hard to do your CFI in an aircraft with two engines, but you can do the CFII and MEI. I know a few that have done it that way, as a result all they were doing was multi instruction while they finished the single add-on.

I did my mutli commercial before the single add-on. Nice part is that I have about 60 hours of multi. Not-so-nice part is that only 2 hours of it is PIC. I've thought about doing what you plan on and doing the instrument instructor rating in the twin but it's much easier to come up with the hourly rate for a 172 than it is for a twin.

Pip-
I will definately take that into consideration and contemplate doing the initial CFI in a single and then just the II and the MEI in the twin. I am glad I did just the initial PMEL because every hour after 15 has been PIC for whatever that is worth in the long run. I just got my letter from the VA approving the commerical instrument in the twin and it approves me for 90 hours of dual and 60 hours of solo at my cost of $58/hr in the duchess after reimbursements, hard to go wrong at those rates.