October 2004
With my new partner Jim Corley walking beside me, we finally headed across the ramp and toward the airplane to do some actual flying (“Partnership, Part One & Two;” August and September issues).
We had already spent several hours together in preparation for this partnership to, quite literally, finally get itself off the ground. That culminating moment was now at hand. Almost.
We had previously created and executed our five-page partnership document and dealt with the ancillary paperwork such as insurance coverage and the FAA ownership forms.
After those chores had come the task of Jim learning the ins and outs of the new airplane—which began with some book work on his part, since this totally restored airframe was jammed with new components and, as a result, lots of up-to-date operating manuals.
Once Jim had digested all he could from the written pages, we had spent considerable time in the cockpit—the airplane made functional by a portable power supply unit that transformed 115 volt house current into the 28 volts of DC that the onboard systems needed in order to show their tricks.
With all the panel do-dahs turned on, it became a much easier and far more instructional session as Jim rapidly acquired the knowledge of how each of these panel gadgets worked and how they interfaced with the others.
Now, a short break later, we were ready to fly. Since we were both ex-airline guys, our previous professional lives had taught us that it’s usually easier to watch someone else do it first. I climbed into the left seat of the twin, Jim slid into the right, and I began to run a demo flight.
We were conducting the initial drill with me flying the airplane just as I would if another pilot wasn’t there. The only exception was that I would verbalize all the cockpit moves I was making, and Jim would periodically interrupt with a question or a statement.
I could easily see that, after all the preparation that we had already gone through, this initial flight together was making far more sense than it would have otherwise. There are lots of different ways to learn a new task, whether it be how to play a decent second base on a softball team, how to ride a horse smoothly, or how to fly a new-to-you airplane.
It has always seemed to me to be a matter of pay now or pay later—that is, you can spend time with some detailed preparation so that you’re really that you need to acquire, or you can just throw yourself headfirst into the program and begin to wrestle with the alligators until you eventually figure out where it would be safe to hold on to the beast and which end of the animal can give you a nasty bite.
By the time I had gotten both engines running, Jim—as observer—was feeling very comfortable.
Since we had talked extensively about it first, what he was seeing made good sense and he could stay “real time” with me. The problem with not knowing what might come next is that any slight variation from what you might have guessed could easily knock your attention span right on its keister—which means that you will miss most of the next thing that will happen, and so on and so on.
But Jim wasn’t missing anything as I taxied out and did the engine runup. He had a question or two about this or that, but basically it was beginning to look rather routine—which is the object of any transition training, to take the “new/different” and make it into the “old/familiar.”
By the time I announced on the unicom frequency that we were taking the runway for takeoff, Jim was as ready for the flight to begin as I was. I pushed up the engine power and spoke out loud about what I was looking at as the takeoff progressed.
This sounds far less complicated than it really is because our modern airplanes have gads of data up there on the instrument panel—all of it vying for your attention at precisely the same moment.
Coming up with a method of taking in as much information as is reasonably possible is the goal here, so that your own initial takeoffs are not just an accelerating blur of needles and numbers. Gear up, exit the traffic pattern, climb to a safe altitude, do a few turns, do a few slow speed maneuvers, fiddle with the radios some, then head back to the airport for a landing.
I kept up a running patter about why I was throwing out initial flaps now, gear then, followed by more flaps later. We rolled onto final with the predetermined airspeed on the gauge, then I just eased the throttles back as we crossed the threshold and touched down. Clearing the runway, I went through the taxi-in and shutdown litany.
It was now time to change seats. Jim slid into the left seat of his new-to-him twin, while I climbed back in on the right. If all would go the way I expected as a result of the prior efforts we had put in and the level of our planning, there would hardly be a need for me to say a word in this final phase of my new partner’s checkout. There wasn’t.
Armed with carefully acquired knowledge, and having already seen the drill performed for him, Jim took to the airplane and its systems as if there wasn’t a question in his mind as to which switch did what at which moment. The engine start, the takeoff checklist, the runup all came and went just the way it should have.
Jim had a few small questions about a few minor points that he wanted to clarify, but otherwise he flew the airplane on his first flight as if he already knew what he was doing—which he did. It wasn’t magic, it was simply good preparation and a continuing good effort on his part.
By the time we had climbed away from the airport and high enough to do a few maneuvers at altitude, he was comfortable behind the reins of his new stead. Part of the leg up, of course, came from Jim being a very experienced pilot who had owned and operated a number of personal airplanes of his own—including a few light twins. So we weren’t talking about “learning to fly” in the strict meaning of that phrase—we were, today, talking about “learning a transition.”
If a pilot’s basic airmanship skills are well developed and practiced, the process of making a transition to something that is unfamiliar—a different airframe, a different instrument panel layout, a different type of powerplant—is a far easier task that can be dealt with by thought and observation rather than rote and repetition.
We’re trying to acquire procedures and sequences, not hand/eye coordination or muscle memory. For this type of learning, this is a more effective, more confidence building method of getting to know something that you don’t—watch and listen to someone who does know, then try to emulate them.
Another way to learn, of course, is to simply jump in and try to figure it all out by yourself. That’s an all-too-common training procedure in piloting circles, where scads of folks don’t want to admit that they possibly don’t know the best way to do something right out of the box. The advantage of listening and watching some-one else is that you can benefit from their time in the saddle and, in a manner of speaking, make their experience level into your own.
My new partner and I continued to play with the airplane together for the next few months, with each of us flying a leg out somewhere and then watching for a leg while the other guy flies it back. That helps, too, in keeping both of you well into the game and both playing at top level. Just having the other guy around to ask about some observation you’ve made means that there is another set of eyes, ears and a brain to make this whole thing continue to work efficiently and safely.
If there’s a downside to having a partner involved in your airplane, I haven’t found it as yet—although I suspect that it’s probably like any sort of human endeavor: you’ve got to have the right people involved together. On that score it will, of course, be different for everybody. If and when you do find a pilot who can fit well with you in all those incalculable aspects that a partnership is heir to, then you’ll more than likely discover that sometimes one plus one can give you a result that’s far greater than two.
Editor-at-Large Thomas Block has flown nearly 30,000 hours since his first hour of dual in 1959. In addition to his 36-year career as a US Airways pilot, he has been an aviation magazine writer since 1969, a best-selling novelist, and the owner of more than a dozen personal airplanes.
