In the past month, Preston Allen, a 24-year-old pilot dreaming of a professional pilot career, has done something most people in the aviation would consider improbable. Atlanta-based flight instructor Dan Gryder found a way to get Allen a whole slew of ratings, including a Cessna Citation CE-550S second-in-command (SIC) type rating, all within the span of about a month.
When Allen's ambitious training journey began on September 2, he was already quite an accomplished pilot, having logged a total of about 1,250 hours. He had also completed the required written tests, Gryder said. However, he was a non-instrument-rated pilot with very little instrument experience.
Allen and Gryder put their noses to the grindstone in various single- and multi-engine airplanes and simulators, and Allen racked up around 100 hours in just over a month. While he did much of the instrument training in a single-engine airplane to keep the cost low, the instrument checkride was done in a twin. This automatically qualified Allen to also fly IFR in a single. However, had the checkride been conducted in a single-engine airplane, Allen would have had to do another checkride to fly twins IFR.
Additionally, doing the initial commercial checkride in a twin allowed Allen to do a quick test with few maneuvers in a single to add the single-engine commercial certificate.
Since the training began just over a month ago, Allen has completed his initial instrument and commercial multi-engine, commercial single, Cessna Citation CE-550S SIC type rating and Douglas DC-3 SIC type rating. That's a lot of fresh ink to be added to the back of his pilot certificate.
Get exclusive online content like this delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for our free enewsletter.
