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inspiring. This wealth bifurcation has made me curious about what the private owners of GV’s, 737, 757, 777 BBJ’s and similar jets must be like as compared to those riding in our (tiny?) Citation III’s and X. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the char- ter clients are much more pleasant, humble, well behaved and generally easy-going, as compared to the folks that were f lying first-class at my airline (I had nine arrested my last five months as an airline captain). In addition to my first exposure to these fine charter folks, it’s also my first exposure to bizjets. I’m f lying about eight days each month, with a few of those spent playing golf and luxuriat- ing. Sometimes with the clients or my f lying partner, some by myself, all while waiting for the return trip home. Despite an unanticipated dis- comfort level with initial training, my chief and assistant chief pilots were right: I do love the Citation despite having to climb back on the recurrent training merry-go-round.
If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
– Albert Einstein (and Tony Robbins)
One thing that I’m trying to change is my aversion to above said training. As described in “Retire Me Not – Part Deux,” I thought training for fun vs. “you-bet-your-ticket” Part 121 training would be painless...it was not. So, here I sit, 0300 in the morning reviewing the memory items and limitations for the CE- 650. Why 3 a.m.? Because I’ve been getting up early my entire life: hunt- ing, backside of the clock flying and shoveling or playing in snow. Why study eight months ahead of time for recurrent training? Because I always told myself when at the airline that if I’d only study a little bit all the time, then I wouldn’t feel so apprehensive when training was upon me as I tried to cram all the information back into my brain that had fallen out.
Well, this time I mean it. I’ve al- ready diverted in bizjets because a generator ate itself, sat three hours due to a rudder bias heater failure and missed out on Punta Cana over a stabilizer-heat controller. Good sys- tems knowledge seems like a pru- dent plan. I’m trying very hard to review something Part 135 or CE-650 related every day. It’s distressing to see how quickly the stuff has fallen out of my head. I’m hoping that it’s simply because it’s a new jet and I don’t fly much vs. me being an 8-iron away from age 70.
Modesty is a vastly
verrated virtue.
– John Kenneth Galbraith
For those who have never piloted a bizjet, and it may seem obvious, they are just what you would expect in a small(er), light(er) weight machine: taxiing can be squirrely, they’re quick to accelerate to V1, roll rate is
crisp, turbulence feels like rumble strips and less soft or “mushy” than a 150,000-pound airliner, and the climb rate drops off up high. Fuel use is low, weight and balance can be tight, cockpit layout is inconsistent from plane to plane, and there are a ton of these smallish jets out there. All of the Florida GA airports have been packed this winter. The night of the NBA All-Star game, we were in CLE with a Citation VII and parking was tighter than Oshkosh. While I don’t miss TSA, airline terminal food and the “ill-mannered” passengers, I do miss flying an airliner: auto- throttles, auto-brakes, auto-spoilers, VNAV, and HUD or auto-land. But I’m grateful to have the Duke, and I’m happy that I took the fork lead- ing to Part 135. It’s fun – even if, andromorphically speaking, they can be moody. And I’m glad that Yogi didn’t say “when you come to a bifurcation” because it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as nicely as does “when you come to a fork.”
Author Correction: Thank you to the thousands (okay, dozens) that caught my math error in February’s story, “Ancestor Worship”: “Then, the next de- scent from 19k to 10k would be: (19-10) x 3 = 18. Start the descent at 18 miles from the fix.” We should have started down at 27 miles from the fix, not 18. If we had followed the captain’s math, we would have missed the assigned altitude and been violated! Actually, and typically, when ATC noticed we were late starting the descent, they would have (hopefully) said, “Are you starting down?” Or “you gonna make that crossing restriction?” Neither one is the preferred scenario.
Short-N-Numbers
http://short-n-numbers.com
Kevin Dingman has been flying for more than 40 years. He’s an ATP typed in the B737, DC9 and CE-650 with 25,000 hours in his logbook. A retired Air Force major, he flew the F-16 and later performed as an USAF Civil Air Patrol Liaison Officer. He flies volunteer missions for the Christian organiza- tion Wings of Mercy, is retired from a major airline, flies the Cessna Citation for RAI Jets, and owns and operates a Beechcraft Duke.Contact Kevin at dinger10d@gmail.com.
26 • TWIN & TURBINE / April 2022