Commercial Pilot Single Engine and Multi Engine Land

It was a long day today; after arriving at 9:30 am at KLZU, my instructor and I went for a flight to practice all maneuvers for the commercial checkride again. It is easier to fly from LZU because you spend a lot less time on the ground, contrary to PDK where besides tons of taxiways, it is also extremely busy sometimes and your hobbs can take .4  hours without even  taking off. Also LZU is closer to Lake Lanier, which is a great practice area and Winder KWDR to practice landings; PDK has nothing around.
So up we went in a scatterred cloudy day, I performed every maneuver within limits and we returned to LZU.
There were several examiners and students taking their CFII and CFI checkrides; the school looked pretty busy.
My oral went fine.. it wasn't perfect.. the examiner asked me some tricky questions about maneuvering speed, performance and density altitude. Then we went up flying, we went up to Lake Lanier and I started with a Lazy-Eight, Chandelle, Steep Spiral and Eights on Pivots.
Then we went back to LZU and did a short (bouncy) landing, a perfect beautiful soft field landing and a so-so power-off 180. The flight only lasted one hour and now I am completely done with ATP's phase 4..
I took a break this afternoon and went to the pool with my family, I enjoyed the rest of the day with them. Tomorrow and the rest of the weekend it will be all about studying for my FIA (Instructor Written Test) and then on monday I will be at CFI school at LZU. I am very excited! I can't believe I am almost done!

Commercial Single Engine Add-on Training

There have been a few changes in the past weeks after I took my FOI. Apparently, one of the instructors at PDK got hired by a regional airline and my instructor was basically unavailable due to a high volume of fast track students at this location. ATP sent an instructor from LZU to PDK and he became now my instructor for the commercial single engine rating.
This is by far, the best instructor I've ever had at ATP and I'm really grateful that he is teaching me these commercial maneuvers.
We have had two flights this week, one on Sunday morning and one yesterday at 7:00 am. I'm pretty sure I have nailed most of the maneuvers except for the eight on pylons. We went up to Lake Lanier and we circled an island on the lake about 10 times, I got a little better on it but we are still going to brush up that skill tomorrow evening. I must not eat anything prior to this flight because it made me dizzy.
Chandelles and Lazy Eights are easy now.. what I did is to watch the UND aerocast videos and practiced the procedures with Microsoft Flight Simulator.

http://youtu.be/UGaGzlXR3ls

http://youtu.be/px2GpLF3COI

One of the most difficult skills is the power-off 180, which is basically closing the throttle when you are abeam the numbers on the traffic pattern and land the airplane on the thousand footers or captains' bars. I nailed it on Monday and I also did it very well yesterday; this is probably the maneuver that gives me a little anxiety but I think I got it now..
My checkride changed and also my DPE.. It will now be this Thursday with Mr. Billy Smith at KLZU.
I have also been studying the Cessna 172R systems thoroughly.
I also start CFI school this Monday the 23rd at KLZU.. It will be a 14 day intensive program where I will be getting my CFI, CFII and MEI certificates. I also have one written test pending for this, the FIA
If everything goes according to the plan, I will be done with ATP on August 3rd. and I'm still not sure where am I going after that.
There is a career fair this weekend by Aero Crew Solutions where there will be a lot of regional airlines; minimums are around 1000 hours right now but I know that there will be a couple of flight schools hiring instructors; I am still not sure If I'm going or not (US$129.00) yet.
I think that's all so far, I'll try to post after my checkride, please wish me luck.

FOI Written done

Yesterday I took the Fundamentals of Instruction (FOI) written test. It was not easy at all and at some point I thought I was going to fail it. I read the FAA Instructor's Handbook twice, did the IPAD lesson and listened to the ASA FOI course on my car every day while going to work.
Well thank God I passed with an 82%. I now only have one written test left, which is CFI and 4 more practical tests.
I'm back to flying on July 14 and will probably have my commercial single-engine add on checkride on tuesday 17th with Mr Fred Houston. I need to master all single engine commercial maneuvers and have a complete knowledge on the 172 systems.
I also signed up for CFI school and I start on July 24th, It will be two intense weeks of training and studying.
Wish me luck.