Enjoying the journey

Similarly, when he decided to start taking flight lessons with the goal of eventually piloting the Cessna Citation CJ3 he and his wife, Nancy, have owned since 2015, Garen knew he couldn’t approach the process half-heartedly. “I’m always busy with stuff,” said Garen, who is the co-founder and former president of Learning Tree International, a company that offers corporate training solutions for IT professionals and managers. “I realized I had to make time.” Then age 69, he stepped back from Bright Prospect, a Pomona, California-based nonprofit he founded in 2002 that helps at-risk teenagers get to and remain in college, so that he could really focus on flying.

The Garens had purchased the CJ3 after many years of fractional jet ownership and a few years traveling via commercial airlines. They had considered a Beechcraft King Air, but they ran the numbers on a CJ3 at the suggestion of Pete Zaccagnino of PC Aviators in Park City, Utah, whose company provides aircraft management services. They discovered that they could get more utility in terms of range and ceiling—the CJ3 has a maximum operating altitude of 45,000 feet, versus 35,000 feet for the King Air 360ER, and the jet’s 2,040 nautical mile maximum range also beats the King Air’s 1,550 nm.

When Garen decided he wanted to fly the CJ3, he started his primary piston-engine training in a Cirrus SR22T, which he still owns. The Cirrus’s ballistic parachute “seemed like a good idea.” He said he and Nancy are in “very, very good health, but stuff happens.” In retrospect, he sometimes wishes he’d learned in a Cessna 172 with a six-pack. But he got through it, completing the private pilot certificate at age 70, and also using the SR22T to earn an instrument rating. The Garens often fly the Cirrus roundtrip from their primary residence in California, where their two sons live, to their home in Utah, which they bought to be closer to their daughter and three grandchildren. It’s three hours one way in the Cirrus, and Nancy says her job as a right seater is to watch the traffic on the ADS-B display and monitor the engine gauges.

To earn a multiengine rating and log time, Garen acquired a Beechcraft Baron G58. He and Nancy have flown it across the U.S., including a trip in which the oil pressure dropped on one engine and they had to make a single-engine landing. Nancy recalls sitting next to Eric as he worked through the malfunction, thinking, This is what he trained for, and I’m just going to sit here and be quiet. Although the airport rolled the emergency equipment for their arrival, the landing was uneventful.

When it was time to earn the type rating for the CJ3, Garen went to FlightSafety International. Initially he thought he’d get the single pilot rating, but quickly realized once he got there that it was too much to absorb in too short a time period. He opted to get a second in command (SIC) type rating, which he completed just two months before his seventy-fifth birthday.

“I never wanted to fly single pilot,” Garen says. “I wanted to [get the PIC rating] for the proficiency.” He flies the jet with another pilot as pilot in command, and because PC Aviators manages the jet, it provides him with a PIC when he needs one.

Garen travels to FlightSafety International in Carlsbad, California, once a month to fly a simulator with an instructor. With the high demand for sim time stemming from the recent surge in airline hiring, he finds he can still book a slot if he keeps his schedule flexible and open.

The Garens fly their Citation mostly between California, Utah, and Montana, although they have traveled to Canada and Ireland to get a taste of international flying.

“The journey is as much fun as the destination,” says Garen, who says he enjoys the comfort and utility of the CJ3. “I was very happy to buy this instead of the King Air. The cost per hour is low, it’s got good short-field performance, [and] it goes reasonably fast.” The purchase price was “a lot lower” than a CJ4, and operating costs were less. On an April trek from Park City to El Cajon, California, the CJ3 made the scenic flight in a cool hour and 40 minutes. Now that’s enjoying the journey.

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