"three-eight-hotel" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am currently IFR and have been giving some consideration into going
after the commercial rating.

You're IFR and you're posting? Shouldn't you be paying attention to the
instruments, and wait until you're back on the ground for Usenet?

[...]
My bottom-line question is... How much is this going to cost me and
can I really afford it?

I don't know whether you can afford it. I can't even tell you how much it
will cost, though obviously you can calculate a minimum cost based on how
much airplanes and instructors cost in your area. The actual cost, likely
to be at least somewhat above the theoretical minimum, will depend on you,
your instructor, and sometimes circumstances beyond either of your control.

Aside from the 10 hours of complex time (plus the checkride in a
complex airplane) and the instructor costs for those 10 hours, it seems
like most of the requirements may have already been covered in the
instrument training or can be done on your own. For example: The 300
NM XCtry, 5 hr. night-VFR with 10 to's and lndgs. at a towered airport,
...

It is true, for many pilots, their every day flying covers much of the basic
aeronautical experience requirements for the Commercial Pilot certificate.
FAR 61.129 has the details you need to know.

I know there are some new maneuvers, but those can be learned in the
172 and confirmed in the complex plane as part of the 10 hours.

Can they? It really depends on the pilot and the instructor. In my own
case, I certainly spent more time learning the maneuvers than I expected to.
Things went more smoothly after I had some time off (medical problems) and
came back to a new instructor.

It just seems to me that most of the requirements may have been met
during previous training and/or by getting out and flying?

Yes, that may well be the case for you.

Is it reasonable to think that I might be able to:
* Spend 4 or 5 hours in the 172, learning all the new maneuvers for
the checkride (at the cost of fuel and an instructor)

I would be surprised if you could learn all of the maneuvers in just 5
hours. There are five tasks in the PTS that are likely brand-new for the
typical Private Pilot, and several more that probably will require at least
some time revisiting to brush up on. It's theoretically possible that you
could learn each of the new maneuvers in 1 hour each, but it seems unlikely.

For what it's worth, I used a 172 to learn the maneuvers, but frankly I
found the complex airplane I intended to use for the checkride -- the
Cardinal RG -- to be much easier to fly. I wouldn't call either the 172 or
the 177RG "precise" airplanes, but the Cardinal certainly had better "feel"
to it, IMHO.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

* Spend 10 hours in a complex plane (at the cost of the plane and
instructor), learning the plane and dialing in the maneuvers
* Take the checkride (cost of DE and plane)

If I flew a 2 hr. day XCtry and 2 hr. night XCtry, meeting the NM
requirements, with an instructor while working on the instrument
rating, would that carry-over?

At a minimum, you would have to meet the VFR requirement as well. Reading
the Part 61 FAQ, Q&A 93 says that an instrument training flight done under
simulated instrument conditions does NOT qualify for the 2 hour XC
requirements, even if the VFR conditions requirement is met (apparently
because, even though the actual conditions are VFR, the pilot is still
flying under IMC...the fact that it's simulated IMC is irrelevant).

In another question, the FAQ does clarify that you can do simulated
instrument conditions in a given flight, and still count that flight for the
2 hours XC. But only if there are 2 hours NOT spent under simulated
instrument conditions for that flight. For example, if you had a 2.5 hour
training flight, meeting the distance requirements, during which you used a
view limiting device for less than half an hour (perhaps you only flew the
approaches under simulated instrument conditions), and for which the rest of
the flight was done under VFR conditions, that would be fine.

Is the requirement that a logbook entry
exist for those elements, or that they were done while training for the
commercial rating?

You would certainly need a logbook entry for any aeronautical experience you
intend to use for the certificate. There is not, as far as I know, a
requirement that the training be done specifically for the Commercial Pilot
certificate. The training flight does, of course, need to include aspects
of piloting found in 61.127(b)(1), but there's nothing that says that
training has to happen after you have "officially" commenced on your
Commercial Pilot training.

My ultimate goal is to get the CFI ticket, and let other help support
my habit! ;-)

Then it's an investment. The real question would be, can you afford to NOT
get the Commercial Pilot certificate. Assuming you eventually make the cost
of the training back through your paid piloting duties, no amount for the
training would be too much, and once you've paid off the training,
everything else is gravy. Right?

Pete