Commercial Seaplane Checkride

[zmiller]

I passed my commercial seaplane checkride last Thursday, and thought I'd post a little about it. The school I did the training at has two instructors, both of whom are examiners. It's a good system--one instructor trains you, then the other gives you the checkride. Because they're both DPE's, they're not going to sign you off until you're good and ready. I've been instructing very full-time in 152's and 172's, so I got through the training pretty quickly (it was in an awesome little C-150/150hp floatplane). The company is based out of a small ranch pond that's probably 3500' long and a few hundred feet wide, slightly curving, and confined by hills on most sides. Taking off was a little challenging one direction due to the need to curve the takeoff run to avoid a hill, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

We used a lot of other reservoirs in the area, mostly pretty confined by hills, dams, and power lines. A few were big enough to do straight-ahead touch and go's, which is fun and gets a lot of attention.

Because it was an add-on, there wasn't a lot to the checkride itself. The oral was brief, consisting mostly of special preflight considerations an passenger briefings. We took off, flew to another lake, did normal t/o's and landings, step taxiing, beaching, and glassy water takeoffs and landings. There was no airwork because it was an add-on (I would HATE to try lazy 8's in the floatplane, but some people do it as their initial). We then flew back for another glassy-water landing, docked, and it was done.

The bizarre thing is that I'm now a seaplane instructor with a whopping 5.6hrs seaplane (including the checkride). Wonder if I'd meet insurance requirements.... .

Anyway, it was the coolest flying I've ever done, hands down. It's not that expensive if you're current in small singles, either, and definately worth it.

-Zach

[Alchemy]

I'd like to do this too....we have a seaplane rated instructor, he's mentioned trying to get our owner to buy an amphib, but there really aren't enough natural lakes in Texas to warrant it (actually, there's only 1 natural lake in the whole state). Of course our helicopter rated instructor is also trying to get the owner to buy a helo...

Thanks for the write up. Maybe someday.