Rebirth reflections

I turned back to see a security guard leaning against the receptionist’s desk and chatting as if nothing were amiss. My surprise turned to incredulity as I stepped through the door and no one intervened. I had very little idea what being a new mom entailed and I struggled to believe what I was doing was legal. If only they knew the extent of my cluelessness, I’m sure they would have stopped me. The day I collected my Bonanza Niky after the airplane’s rebirth as a glass panel aircraft proved to be a déjà vu moment. During its transformation, it shook the last vestiges of 1968, when faux wood paneling conveyed luxury and the VOR and DME receivers were relatively new to small general aviation aircraft. With a touchscreen primary flight display (PFD), multiple GPS receivers, and an updated layout, the Bonanza finally looked like a twenty-first-century bird.

As the engine roared to life for the first time in many weeks, I searched the panel to find the new home for the engine gauges. I fumbled with the remote transponder to squawk 1200 and stretched to the right side of the panel to set the com frequencies when I could have done that on the PFD. My preparation for this day suddenly felt grossly insufficient. As luck would have it, I was blessed with beautiful visual conditions all the way from Pennsylvania to Tennessee. So Niky and I enjoyed an uneventful, if at times frustrating, flight home. But I put atop my to-do list diving into the manuals to master the new panel.

Well, that was the plan until life got in the way.

On a flight the next month, a turkey vulture took out Niky’s windscreen (See “Lessons from a CFI,” March 2021 AOPA Pilot) and the airplane spent the next few months in the shop. Then my university schedule became crazy. Well, I could rattle off more excuses, but they begin to sound lame. Last summer I realized the third birthday for Niky’s makeover approached and I hadn’t mastered the panel.

That realization hit home when I flew IFR from Tennessee to Arlington, Texas (GKY), in July. My initial clearance was direct to the airport which would take me to the southeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. As I neared Dallas from the east, ATC issued me a rerouting and assigned the TRUUK TWO arrival. Not being familiar with the procedure, I wondered if I should look at the arrival plate first before including it in my navigator’s flight plan. Or should I just load it and then preview to get a sense for where it would take me? I ended up including the arrival in my ForeFlight flight plan and saw the procedure took me around the northwest side of DFW. I then put the autopilot in heading mode and turned the airplane roughly 20 degrees to the right and toward SASIE. After I had included the arrival procedure in my navigator’s flight plan, I switched back to Nav mode and synced up all my devices. Within minutes, ATC then instructed me to proceed direct GKY, and I went through another laborious sequence to take the arrival procedure back out. All my fumbling showed how much work I still needed to do.

While I had read the manuals enough for a reasonable understanding of each unit in my avionics suite, I had little facility for using the devices in concert. That training exists for systems like the Garmin G1000 where the installation is relatively uniform from one platform to the next. But I chose each of my units like the PFD, navigator, transponder, and engine instruments separately so there is no one course on optimizing their use. It’s not an easy issue to address.

With no quick fix, I knew I had a lot of homework to do before training in my Bonanza. I assembled a ground training regimen that took me back to square one in relearning instrument procedures with the equipment. Only after maximizing my home study would I schedule training with a flight instructor.

Since I was due for a flight review last fall, I consulted FAA’s Currency Requirements and Guidance for the Flight Review and Instrument Proficiency check (AC 61-98D), which encourages pilots to develop a personalized plan for currency. I was delighted to see that I could set up a plan in which I could improve my instrument proficiency as well as satisfy the requirements for a flight review.

I started by completing the American Bonanza Society’s online BPPP Focus course for an instrument proficiency check that consisted of modules on instrument departures, briefing IFR procedures, flying stabilized approaches, and a review of IFR regulations. Especially helpful was the ABS Flying by the Numbers chart that gives power settings that provide known performance for various phases of an IFR flight: takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, approach, and landing. I checked these for Niky and found I needed to make just a tweak or two instead of generating these settings from scratch. Knowing these configurations can significantly reduce workload so the pilot can devote attention to flying or monitoring the automation.

I then turned to ensuring that I understood each of the devices in my airplane, including an iPad with ForeFlight mounted on the panel. By nature I am a bookworm, but I confess that I’ve never found a manual that was a page turner. So, I sought out online tutorials instead. ForeFlight has an excellent repository of videos from which I gleaned helpful tips. The Garmin tutorial for my GFC 500 autopilot is one of their best and highlighted the power of such automation.

For my GTN 650xi GPS/com, however, the best advice I found came from PilotWorkshops. “Garmin GTN: The Next Level” is a course that covers advanced features of the GTN, but narrator Ryan Koch gives the option of starting with a video that reviews the basics. (I did just that and would be embarrassed to admit how much I learned!) As with all PilotWorkshops products, the material is painstakingly researched and presented with outstanding explanation and graphics. I finished the course able to use more features of the GTN as well as best practices for efficient use.

My hope is that you are far better at handling your own equipment than I found myself on the way to Arlington. But I suspect there are others like me who have discovered their abilities lacking. As an examiner, I see candidates fumbling with their own equipment to insert a hold or when it comes time to execute a missed approach maneuver. While it’s fun to fly, the airplane becomes a viable training platform only when it follows solid ground instruction. After completing my courses, I printed my ABS BPPP Focus instrument proficiency check certificate and, for a modest fee, arranged the flight portion of the training. I finally feel ready for instruction in my reborn Niky and her new panel. Wish us luck!