A goal reached - complex endorsement finished
After too many months working on the complex endorsement I finally finished it today. The primary delay was 2-fold - 1) I had to get 5 hours dual minimum for insurance reasons, and 2) weather and schedules kept me from flying very much at all.
But I have finally gotten it and plan to take the wife up for a quick ride in the local area sometime soon.
Overall, getting used to flying a complex airplane was not too hard. After about 3 hours of training I started to feel comfortable. It took those first hours to get used to the proper way to make power changes and to get a good idea of when the lower/raise the gear. The biggest change is the increased importance of checklists. Granted, they are important in the simplest airplane, but their value takes new heights when you have more systems to manage (and potentially forget about). I still need work on checklist discipline but have improved greatly over the last couple months.
I’ve read about people doing even their initial primary training in a complex airplane. Based on my experience going through this recent training, I am glad I didn’t try to do the same thing. It was interesting enough with 200+ hours already under my belt. With zero it might get to the frustrating level pretty quickly.
I enjoy flying partly because of the technical skills required, i.e. when to flip which switch, and this endorsement lets me fly airplanes with even more of that going on.
I just hope it is a good long, long while (read: never) before I prove the adage “There are pilots who HAVE landed with the gear up and those that WILL”.
But I have finally gotten it and plan to take the wife up for a quick ride in the local area sometime soon.
Overall, getting used to flying a complex airplane was not too hard. After about 3 hours of training I started to feel comfortable. It took those first hours to get used to the proper way to make power changes and to get a good idea of when the lower/raise the gear. The biggest change is the increased importance of checklists. Granted, they are important in the simplest airplane, but their value takes new heights when you have more systems to manage (and potentially forget about). I still need work on checklist discipline but have improved greatly over the last couple months.
I’ve read about people doing even their initial primary training in a complex airplane. Based on my experience going through this recent training, I am glad I didn’t try to do the same thing. It was interesting enough with 200+ hours already under my belt. With zero it might get to the frustrating level pretty quickly.
I enjoy flying partly because of the technical skills required, i.e. when to flip which switch, and this endorsement lets me fly airplanes with even more of that going on.
I just hope it is a good long, long while (read: never) before I prove the adage “There are pilots who HAVE landed with the gear up and those that WILL”.
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