Green Castle Aero Club holds a special place in Associate Editor Julie K. Boatman's heart — it's where she learned to fly. "When a family friend introduced me to general aviation in high school, he also suggested that I learn to fly at a place that would best ground me in the basics. That happened to be at Green Castle, where Don Nelson was my primary instructor," says Boatman. "There are echoes of that training in every flight I make — such as pushing the nose over at 500 feet agl on upwind to check for traffic before turning crosswind or departing the pattern." Green Castle continues to mentor young pilots with its scholarship program, detailed in " Budget Buys: Little Strip, Extended Family," beginning on page 98.
"We are taught from day one to use checklists, mnemonics, and anything else we can find short of a neon sign to help us make sure that we don't miss anything," says Alaska Airlines pilot Marc Henegar. "Everyone has some embarrassing stories in their closet of how they missed something, stories they only tell when on heavy medication." In " Did I Miss Something?" starting on page 75, Henegar gives us an opportunity to learn at someone else's expense.
The envelope, please ... and yes, the award for longest-lived American turboprop twin goes to the Beechcraft King Air. In this issue, Editor-at-Large Thomas A. Horne flies a new King Air C90B and finds something new in the King Air's "old" panel, something that most general aviation pilots can identify with. "Remember those intimidating, confounding, center-pedestal mounted, keyboard-driven flight management systems — well, they're gone in the C90B," says Horne. "In their place is a Garmin GPS 400, a 430 without the VHF radios. Working the 400 is a breeze compared to earlier setups, and adds to the enjoyment of captaining the King." Horne's article on the King Air C90B, " Turbine Pilot: Staying Power," begins on page 90.
Business and corporate aviation are among the safest forms of civil aviation in the United States, some years even safer than the airlines. Yet accidents do occur to bizjets, mostly during approach and landing operations. This phenomenon has fascinated John J. Sheehan in his work as a consultant to corporate flight departments. He explores accidents occurring during the final minutes of flight in " ALARming Findings," beginning on page 105, which recounts the essential features of a landmark Flight Safety Foundation report. "Focusing on the handful of risks associated with approach and landing phases of flight should reduce corporate accidents substantially; all it takes is a bit of perspective and insight," Sheehan says.
