Comm. ride from the right seat?

[Raskal]

A-36

I'll tell you right now that the Bo is probably not the way to go, simply because doing a power off 180 at 110kias is more of a challenge than you could really want. If you don't immediately enter a 30deg turn for the runway following the power reduction forget it-you aren't going to get there.

The Bonanza is an awesome aircraft, but to use it on the commercial ride is just making it more difficult for no reason. Good luck!

 

[bobbysamd]

A-36 and commercial airwork

It can be done, though. I had an excellent Mesa student who did a great job flying commercial airwork in the A-36. I remember giving that student an "A" for his flight course. I am 99.999% certain that Mesa hired him and he eventually made Captain.

Max performance takeoffs and landings are really no problem at all. As with any airplane, nail your airspeeds. Soft field landings can be done; just be careful not to get the nose too high or else you might have a tailstrike.

You can train in Bonanzas. At Mesa we took zero-timers and took them through Private and Instrument in them. It's all relative. They didn't know the difference because they hadn't flown before. I, and others, who trained in Cessna and Piper saw the difference.

Just the same, the Arrow might be the better choice for Commercial because it is seems to be more oriented to training.

One other thought, Earl. Unless your school has a policy against it, you can take your Commercial in your favorite simple single and use the retractable to demonstrate those operations. I don't know of a single examiner who won't let you fly the airwork in a simple single. I did for mine and demonstrated high-performance/complex operations in an Arrow.

Once again, good luck with your choice of aircraft.