"David B. Cole" wrote in message
m...

But does it make sense to do the multi before the Comm, and would I
receive more benefit from following my original plan?


It makes more sense to do the multi then do the commercial in the multi
engine. The guys who say that you can do the cross countries in the single
and then do a multi add-on are only half right. Much of the cross country in
a single must be solo, but you can do it dual in a multi-engine, thus
meeting the requirements for dual training at the same time as the cross
country, cutting the total hours considerably. At your point, I would
recommend the multi-engine private and get the multi-engine instrument at
the same time -- you only have to add a couple of approaches to the check
ride. Then do all the commercial training in a multi-engine plane; it serves
as a complex airplane. Then go back and do the single-engine add-on. All you
have to do then is the single-engine maneuvers, no cross country and no
complex training.