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Back Flying Again Soon
by Dale Brown, 2008

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, May 04, 2008

Today I drove the Gold Wing to Reno and signed up to get checked out in a 2004 Cessna Turbo 182 at Northern Nevada Aviation at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

I met the owner, Patrick Johnston, his daughter Jenni who runs the front counter, and my instructor Andre Mailloux.

The weather wasn't cooperating, so I couldn't get my check ride done, but Andre reviewed my logbook, gave me an overview of the program, and then took me out to a couple of the planes I'm interested in flying.

The Piper Aztec is the owner's personal plane, and I can see I'll be taking this baby for all of my longer flights and missions with passengers and baggage. It's very much like most of the planes I've owned myself: six seats, full deice, digital avionics, big and roomy.

But for most local training and shorter-range trips I'll probably be taking the C-182, and this is one plane I can't wait to try. While the Aztec is well equipped with fairly new Garmin nav/comm/GPS units, the 182 is decked out with the Garmin G-1000 system, which is an integrated navigation/comm/autopilot/engine monitor suite featuring two big beautiful 10" multi-function color displays.

Instead of little three-inch "steam gauges," the G-1000 presents all information on those color screens. The pilot's display, or Primary Flight Display, shows navigation and flight information; the display on the copilot's side, or Multi-Function Display, shows engine instrumentation along with a moving map with terrain, weather, and traffic.

Most of the information is presented like typical gauges, but a lot of information is presented differently to make it more understandable on a single screen. For example, altitude and airspeed are presented with vertical digital "tapes" on either side of the artificial horizon, very similar to the FB-111 bomber I flew in the Air Force. The instrument scan is different, but much, much easier.

Controlling the G-1000 is very much like using the older but familiar Garmin GNS-430s or -530s--a lot of button-pushing and knob-twisting, but fairly intuitive. The G-1000 eliminates a lot of knobs and buttons by using multi-purpose "soft keys" around the bezel which changes what the button does depending on the function.

Even though I'm a techie guy and I'm confident I can figure out the G-1000 easily, I sat down for an hour with the King School CD program on basic G-1000 functions. It was a good review, and I can see I'll need to review the G-1000 instrument flying and autopilot functions before I go on my first solo cross-country in the weather.

Speaking of the weather: it had gone down considerably in the few hours I was in Reno. I drove down in partly cloudy conditions, but on the return I was facing light drizzle in Reno which intensified quickly the more I headed up the hill.

By the time I reached Mt. Rose Summit on Highway 431 (about 8,900 feet elevation), I was in a fairly intense SNOWSTORM (yes, it is May 4th!)! I had to stop every few minutes to wipe snow off the windshield! Naturally, I had taken all my raingear out of the bike when I unpacked from my Laughlin trip, so I had no wet weather protection.

But it wasn't sticking, the roads were wet but not slippery, and as long as I kept moving I wasn't getting wet. Fortunately I had the winter-weight jacket and my full-face helmet on, so except for my thin leather gloves getting trashed by wiping snow off the windshield, I was OK.

All in all, a fun day. Can't wait to start getting in the books and thinking about flying again! It puts my brain in a completely different mode than writing.

We'll see how the airplane rental experience goes. The planes look like they're in great shape. I'm worried about availability when I want them. There are six planes at NNA. Three are Cessna-172s and are used quite often for flight training.

A quick glance at the online schedule for the C-182, Piper Arrow, and Piper Aztec don't show them used nearly as often. So I might be OK for having a plane available for Las Vegas, Seattle, and Scottsdale.

And if the rental experience is favorable, maybe I'll invest in a new 2008 plane and lease it back to NNA for their rental fleet. It will be a switch for me to fly and own a plane with an all-glass high-tech cockpit that's less than 20 years old! Hmmmm...

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