Commercial Oral Exam Guide: The Comprehensive Guide to Prepare You for the FAA Oral Exam (Oral Exam Guide series) [Paperback]

Michael D. Hayes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1560276517 | ISBN-13: 978-1560276517 | Edition: 6

An indispensable tool for pilots preparing for the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) commercial pilot oral exam, this guide contains the questions most frequently asked of applicants during their one-on-one “checkride” with an FAA examiner and prepares them for the flight review. Exact citations accompany each question and indicate where further reference material can be found in FAA literature. This revised edition—which features important FAA regulatory, procedural, and training updates—examines topics such as weather, airplane systems, emergency procedures, cross-country flight planning, aeromedical factors, and commercial flight maneuvers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael D. Hayes has been flying for more than 30 years and has accumulated numerous certificates and ratings, including private and commercial single- and multi-engine land ratings. He is currently a certified flight instructor (instrument) and is the author of several books in the Oral Exam Guides series. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Aviation Supplies & Academics, Inc.; 6 edition (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560276517
• ISBN-13: 978-1560276517
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,080,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fair coverage due to the nature of the rating, August 30, 2000

By 

Jim Carson "http://www.jimcarson.com" (Bellevue, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Commercial Oral Exam Guide: The Comprehensive Guide to Prepare You for the FAA Oral Exam (Paperback)

Mr Hayes' guide is a fair and generic review for oral portion of the commercial (single-engine, airplane) checkride and covers required equipment (91.213, MELs), restrictions on flying for hire (part 91 vs 121), and general info on complex airplanes. The Gleim book has a more thorough coverage on regulations and maneuvers.

Any guide like this should be a supplement to a review with your CFI. Most examiners have particular areas they wish to emphasize -- usually based on previous applicants or trends from the FAA/NTSB inspectors.

Where this book is deficient, and this is largely because the nature of the commercial rating, is its description of advanced systems. This is because for the commercial, you take part or all of your checkride using a complex (retractible gear, cowl flaps, controllable pitck prop), airplane. The seriousness of the rating requires that you know a *lot* about the aircraft. Successful applicants will bond with the pilot operating handbook, as well as "memorize" the placement of every gage, knob and instrument.

For the purposes of review, Mr Hayes assumes you have a Cessna 172RG, which is not a bad guess as it's among the cheaper and more ubiquitous training retractible airplanes available. He does a good job covering the basics of the 172rg differences (hydraulic landing gear, cowl flaps and prop). To his credit, he makes an attempt at including suggested power settings for the maneuvers. (Unfortunately, these will only be approximations, you have to try them in the plane you're going to do the exam in.)

2.0 out of 5 stars Not very helpful for me, April 3, 2010

By 

Chris Olsen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Commercial Oral Exam Guide: The Comprehensive Guide to Prepare You for the FAA Oral Exam (Oral Exam Guide series) (Paperback)

I just finished the flight and oral aspects of the commercial exam. Looking back on it, this book did LITTLE to help. I referenced it a few times, but for the most part, it wasn't very helpful at all(It was very wordy and confusing and it doesnt give you the "why").
I would only buy this book if you can get it for cheap. Otherwise, use the FAR/AIM, airplane flying handbook, and the Jeppeson Commercial/instrument book. The Jeppeson book was by far the most valuable and informational.