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Obermeyer said that his life would look significantly different if it weren’t for aviation. Take, for example, two of his most frequent flights, one to the site of a long- time renewable energy project of his in southwestern Colorado and the other to the Obermeyer Wood satellite office in the state’s capital city. Collectively, these route pairs make up more than 75% of the Colo- radan’s missions.
“I have a hydroelectric project in Durango that, in the summer, pro- duces power for about 5,000 homes. And the drive from Aspen, just be- cause it’s so mountainous, is about six hours. Whereas when flying, you can cut that by 80% or more. It’s about a 30-minute flight to Denver. The ability to get around more flu- ently is a huge thing for me.”
Centennial Airport serves as a convenient second base not only for visiting his investment firm’s second office in Cherry Creek but for training at FlightSafety as well.
“If airline pilots train twice a year, and they’re flying many more hours than we are, it makes sense for us to continue training as much as possi- ble. If a person is going to fly a high- performance plane, they will need tospendalotoftimetobesafeinit. They should be spending a lot of time developing and maintaining a high level of competency,” he prefaced.
“I endeavor to train two or three times a year. One time is always at FlightSafety, and I’m really lucky that they have a PC-12 NG simulator in Denver. I also like to do thorough in-aircraft training once a year, and I keep flashcards that I use to stay cur- rent with the numbers. It is amazing how those little things help.”
He is keen to focus not only on the stick and rudder portion of fly- ing but also on the systems of his aircraft – especially the avionics. Obermeyer contends that gain- ing an advanced understanding of the Honeywell Apex system has been beneficial for him as a PC-12 owner, as has flying with others and learning from them. He said that he aims to fly with pilots who
have different skill sets and back- grounds. He recently flew with a lo- cal Part 135 PC-12 pilot on the way to a Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha. He learned a lot during that flight, he said.
Obermeyer has recently joined the board of the Pilatus Owners & Pilots Association (POPA) and appre- ciates and respects the organization’s focus on safety.
“One project that POPA is work- ing on is creating a series of videos that are being shot within the simulator. They show a pilot under a particular emergency situation, a trim runaway, or some failure and response and demonstrate how we, as normal pilots, might (likely incor- rectly) respond. The videos then show an instructor going through the same situation, discussing the common
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