Page 26 - TNTApril2018

But that individual has to be trained and qualified. From time to time, I fly airplanes wherein a low-time private pi- lot employee of the owner wants to sit up front and “help.” Almost always, this makes the task of piloting more rather than less difficult. Even if you have all the ratings, there is an art to competent- ly flying as a two-pilot crew, and it takes a lot of training and time to learn it well.
Another thing many of us observe is a reluctance (or at least a lack of burn- ing desire) on the part of our spouses to fly with us on personal trips, but not so when flying in the back of the jet we
are flying professionally. We point out that doesn’t matter which airplane we are in, we are exactly the same person with precisely the same foibles, but that does not seem to change the dynamic much. This attitude on their part is probably a reflection of what we are feel- ing ourselves. That is, a very high per- sonal and emotional investment in the outcome, and because of this a desire to distance oneself from involvement with the event.
Sometimes all this can create an awk- ward situation when in the pilot lounge with small kids and wife hanging about.
Some fellow with 800 hours and an in- strument rating is flight-planning a trip that most of us high-time pros would readily fly professionally, particularly as a crew, but would not touch personally, even though it would be perfectly legal and probably reasonably safe if looked at objectively. Hard to know what to say in those circumstances.
So, Mike and I ruminate on all this for several hours while his now-for-sale C414 is being worked on. We wonder if weownedajet(sayaCJthatbothofus are rated in) would it entirely resolve the greater level of conservatism we have both noted in our personal flying. In the end we decide that although it may help a bit, we still would be very emotionally involved with the flights’ outcome and that would continue to influence our thinking. We are professional pilots af- ter all, and know from experience that If anything goes wrong, the workload in a jet can get very high, very fast. We de- cide that concern about that possibility with family members sitting behind us single-pilot, would be very distracting. The end result being, we would assign ourselves higher minimums, just like we do in the piston twins.
In medical school they teach you about the need for professional objectiv- ity and point out that because you are emotionally involved, you should not take care of immediate family members for anything except very routine mat- ters (the flying equivalent of very good VFR conditions). And for physicians, realizing those implications and behav- ing in that fashion is considered a sign of mature professional com•petence.
Maybe we should happily adopt that attitude and not worry about our “higher minimums” when doing personal flights with family members on board. I sus- pect we would all be safer. T&T.
AOPA Insurance 1/2 page island 4/C Ad
www.aopainsurance.org
Kevin Ware is an ATP who also holds CFI, MEII and helicopter ratings, has more than 10,000 hours and is typed in several different business jets. He has been flying for a living on and off since he was 20, and currently works as a contract pilot for various corporations in the Seattle area. When not working as a pilot he is employed part time as an emergency and urgent care physician. He can be reached at kevin.ware2@aol.com.
24 • TWIN & TURBINE
April 2018