MULTI ENGINE ADD-ON

What the Multi-Engine Add-On Involves

The Commercial multi-engine add-on has no minimum hour requirement in the regulations — it is a proficiency-based rating. Most pilots who already hold a Commercial single-engine certificate need somewhere between seven and twelve hours of dual instruction to reach practical test standards, depending on how current and precise their instrument and airspeed control already are.

Training focuses on what is genuinely different about a twin: asymmetric flight, engine-out identification and verification, drag reduction and feathering, single-engine performance limits, and the systems management that a second engine adds. The general handling you already have transfers; the failure management is new.

The Checkride Itself

The oral covers aircraft systems, fuel management, weight and balance, and above all single-engine performance — accelerate-stop and accelerate-go figures, blue-line and red-line speeds, and what the aircraft will and will not do on one engine at the day's weight and temperature. The flight portion includes engine failures at various phases, single-engine approaches and landings, steep turns and Vmc demonstration within the manufacturer's limits.

Candidates who arrive with the memory items, speeds and performance numbers already automatic typically complete the add-on at the lower end of the hour range, because instruction time is spent flying rather than studying.

Why It Is Worth Adding

Multi-engine time is the currency of professional aviation hiring, and the add-on is the gateway to logging it. It also opens multi-engine instructor work, which is one of the fastest ways to accumulate twin time while being paid rather than paying. For pilots planning an airline application, holding the rating and a meaningful block of multi time behind it is a materially stronger position than total time alone.

Multi-Engine Add-On in Fort Lauderdale, FL

Multi-engine training runs on our own Piper Seneca and Beechcraft Duchess based at KFXE, so there is no ferry flight or waiting on a visiting aircraft. Engine-out work is flown over the Everglades practice areas west of the field, with single-engine approaches back into KFXE and nearby Pompano Beach (KPMP).

Multi time-building starts at $176/hr wet on longer blocks, which is why pilots from across South Florida — and out of state — add the rating here rather than at home.

Where Multi-Engine Students Travel From

Local students come from Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Hollywood, Coral Springs, Miami, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach; visiting pilots fly into KFLL twenty minutes away and stay in accommodations near the airport while they complete the add-on in a few consecutive days.