Aero-Tips!

A good pilot is always learning -- how many times have you heard this old standard throughout your flying career? There is no truer statement in all of flying (well, with the possible exception of "there are no old, bold pilots.")

Aero-News has called upon the expertise of Thomas P. Turner, master CFI and all-around-good-guy, to bring our readers -- and us -- daily tips to improve our skills as aviators. Some of them, you may have heard before... but for each of us, there will also be something we might never have considered before, or something that didn't "stick" the way it should have the first time we memorized it for the practical test.

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Aero-Tips 08.21.06

Turbine time.  It's the elusive credential needed to put you over the top for an airline or corporate interview.  It's what you'll need to fly a personal turboprop or Very Light Jet (VLJ).  But how can you log that elusive (and expensive!) turbine time?

A reader asked me this question. He flies a high-performance, fixed-gear single. His business gives him the opportunity to travel (hence the airplane), and he's looking for a larger airplane to meet passenger and equipment-carrying requirements. He's narrowing his search to the single-engine turboprops (the TBM850 and PC-12 are tops on his list), and realizes it'll be some time before he can fly it as pilot-in-command (PIC). Business arrangements may permit co-owning the airplane with another company that employs a pilot...so he hopes to log right-seat time toward flying it himself.

Obstacles

I explained that this is a more difficult goal than he suggests. There are some obstacles standing between him and the left seat of a turboprop.

• Federal Air Regulations (FARs) permit him to log time in the airplane only when he is the "sole manipulator of the controls".
• He will need to obtain his complex and (perhaps) high performance endorsements (there's debate about the need for the "high performance", because that applies to piston powerplants, not turbines), and the high altitude endorsement, before he can operate as PIC.
• If another pilot is PIC and a current flight instructor, my reader is able to log "dual instruction received" in the turbine airplane (assuming the CFI is actually providing instruction, and logs the dual in my reader's logbook).
• My reader cannot log second-in-command (SIC) time, even if company or insurance requirements call for two-pilot operation, because these airplanes do not require a second pilot under FARs.

The bad news

The bad news is that any insurance would likely be void if my reader flies as sole manipulator of the controls (given his lack of experience), or if the PIC conducts dual flight instruction in the airplane. Hence it appears there's no way for my reader to log any experience, so he'll never be able to qualify as turbine PIC under an insurance policy.

Strategy

Historically pilots have depended on military time to gain turbine experience, or a long period of gradually moving up through experience ranks -- from fixed gear to retractable gear to multiengine to pressurized piston to turbine equipment -- each presenting it's own "you need experience to fly them, but you can't get experience without flying them" obstacles.

Barring military service or a long, expensive "prequalification" for turbines, the only strategy seems to be participation in a well-defined training regime, including factory-approved training, a "mentor pilot" who provides loggable dual instruction for the first hundred hours or more in the turbine type, and a willing insurance underwriter. And, a few tens of thousands of dollars for insurance, because such a pilot historically represents a huge risk for an insurance carrier. Not coincidentally, this is exactly what the hopeful Very Light Jet (VLJ) manufacturers are proposing for buyers of their turbine airplanes -- a drawn-out internship to raise a piston pilot to a jet-captain level of professionalism through training, testing, and "mentor pilots". It's a long, expensive road... but it's the only way to "get there from here".

Aero-tip of the day: Prepare a detailed "transition plan" to move into turbine equipment, and realize that there is a significant training commitment associated with being safe in turbine airplanes.

FMI: Aero-Tips