AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2019 - 24

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT

This year's model

BY RICHARD MCSPADDEN
Executive Director
AOPA Air Safety Institute

A studied approach to transitions

AOPA Air Safety
Institute Executive
Director RICHARD
MCSPADDEN will be
part of the team giving a ground school
workshop on formation flying at AOPA's
Livermore, California,
Fly-In June 21 and
22, and Tullahoma,
Tennessee, Fly-In
September 13 and 14.

24 | AOPA PILOT June 2019

I'M FLYING RIGHT SEAT in a beautiful Beechcraft Baron
in crowded South Florida airspace for a mid-week lunch
fly-out. John Coe, the pilot/owner flying the Baron, is
an A&P/IA with two Stearman rebuilds under his belt
and a couple thousand hours flying them. He picked
up Stearmans after flying Pitts Specials in competition aerobatics on his days off from flying with UPS,
where he's logged more than 20,000 flight hours. But
none of that experience comforts John on this flight.
He is in his newly acquired Baron with dual Garmin
G1000 displays, which John and his wife, Diane, bought
in Southern California and ferried back to Wellington,
Florida (FD38), just a few days before our flight.
Both John and Diane, also a UPS captain with
more than 18,000 hours, insisted on a checkout and
an instrument proficiency check in their new Baron.
They alternated pilot-in-command legs for the ferry trip
home and kept the CFI on board for half the trip. They
again alternated legs for the remainder of the flight
home, which included flying in instrument conditions
and some approaches in low ceilings, breaking out near
minimums. Both decided they wanted more time, more
training, and, most important, more proficiency with the
new panels before flying hard IFR single-pilot.
On our flight, John was a bit timid in the Baron. He's
used to mastering his work. The Garmin displays, though,
are new to him. He had about 80 percent of the interface
and controls down, but he had to think a few seconds longer to update flight plans, add an amended clearance, or
proceed direct to a fix with an altitude restriction.
FD38 to Bartow, Florida (BOW), is barely 100 miles.
Miami Center was busy. The controller was short with
pilots who miscued. My instinct was to forget picking up
an IFR clearance and head in VFR using ADS-B for traffic
avoidance and pick our way under and around the scattered to broken clouds at around 5,000 feet.
But this busy flight was exactly the scenario John
wanted. A complicated situation for GA IFR flying:
Launch out of a nontowered field adjacent to restricted
airspace and while hand-flying a complex, high-performance twin, pick up a clearance airborne, modify
on-board navigation, set and confirm autopilot, and
work radios-all in a new airplane with unfamiliar avionics. Add in flying single-pilot in instrument conditions
and it becomes a heavy task that demands proficiency.
John wanted the practice while in visual conditions

with an experienced pilot in the right seat-a good
example for all of us. A high-time pilot, highly qualified in multiple airplane categories and clearly confident
in his skills, is respectful of the challenges of transitioning to a new airplane and new avionics.
In transitioning to new airplanes, small things can
cause a pilot to get behind the airplane or lose situational awareness. A notepad may be in a different
pocket than where you kept it in the other airplane. Or
a Direct-To function on the nav panel requires a different button sequence than you're used to. There's no time
to fumble for those when ATC is spewing an amended
clearance while you're clipping along at 180 knots. The
effect is exacerbated in single-pilot IFR flying.
On our flight, I didn't fully lock the cabin door, which
is on the right side in the Baron. I checked it, as did
John, because the locked indicator wasn't completely
visible. Hmm, oh, well, we both decided, looks locked,
feels locked, can't see daylight, must be the indicator isn't
quite calibrated. No, we learned once airborne, the door
was shut but not locked and the wind noise was a distraction all during the flight-a little thing that causes
annoyance with missed coms and diverted attention.
John consistently referred to his checklist; we discussed the nuances of a Baron runup and before-takeoff
sequence. We paused for a pre-takeoff briefing, verbalized the VMC speed, then called our takeoff intentions and
turned toward the runway, just as another aircraft lifted
off from the opposite direction. The other pilot was at the
far end and we were still clear of the runway, so there was
no runway incursion or collision potential, but it bothered us both that we didn't hear him. Why? New airplane,
new routines, distractions with a new before-takeoff procedure, and unfamiliar right-seat pilot.
John's stick-and-rudder skills were evident on our
flight. His comfortable and astute radio coms exposed
decades of flying in a professional environment. He
hasn't mastered the new Baron panel to his desired
level of performance, and I admire his approach. In the
safety business, it's difficult to measure the accident that
didn't happen, but if more of us took John's methodical
approach to transitioning airplanes (or avionics), we'd
surely prevent a few more accidents.
Go fly!
AOPA
EMAIL richard.mcspadden@aopa.org

AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2019