Single-engine practice
“Dave, enclosed is your new policy covering your PBaron,” said the email from broker Josh Jabour. Josh had found a new carrier, saving me a few thousand bucks. That was the good news. But when I looked at the fine print, I noticed that the “training requirements” section was blank. Was this a typo? Josh answered with, “The underwriter knows all about your training regimen and said it would be redundant to require anything in the policy. Do whatever you want to do.”
In 59 years of flying, I had never heard of this.
I was already flying with mentor Doug Moss, completing the American Bonanza Society internet PBaron course, and attending FlightSafety’s simulator class in Wichita annually.
It’s a trick, I thought. They know that by putting me entirely in charge, I will train even more than my current regimen. This was a brilliant move. Now the pressure was on. I had to up my game!
And so, I began to look around for something new to add. Word of mouth soon led me to BPT (Bonanza and Baron Pilot Training) pbpt.org. Around for decades, this travelling class presents weekend ground schools dedicated to the two airframes. I decided to take a look.
Late March found me in Austin, Texas, for the class. The instructors were some of the oldest and wisest I have met. They let me join them for dinner prior to the class, but only if I paid for margaritas. I glanced around the table and started adding up the logbook hours of these legends. I stopped counting after 100,000!
Indeed, they looked like residents of retirement homes, but that’s where the comparison ended. These octogenarians (and older) were the most knowledgeable and best communicators in the business.
I bragged about my 7,000 hours, and most couldn’t remember when they had that few. And they handled the margaritas better than I did. The classes were great, and I flew for 3-4 hours of in-plane instruction. They even had a Bonanza/Baron expert mechanic who did a free walk-around on every airplane and then spent an hour with each owner discussing his findings.
All in all, the best “bang for the buck” training experience I have had.
So, who am I trying to impress with all this training? I will be 75 this year. My reaction time and cognitive skills are certainly not what they were 30 years ago. I try to mitigate those factors with increased training. Things happen fast in an airplane.
Case in point. Climbing out of KSHV recently in perfect weather with the AP engaged in NAV mode, the airplane suddenly banked 30 degrees and continued turning off course. It was so sudden and unexpected that my initial thought was that I had an engine failure. A quick scan of those gauges said everything was normal. But the airplane continued to turn. After an AP disconnect and reset, all was normal.
The more you train, the better the outcome.
Fly safe.
