John and Martha King On Sport Pilot Training
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Posted
by Fred George at
7/24/2007 5:22 PM CDT
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John and Martha King of San Diego-based King Schools have the contract to provide training courses to the Cessna Pilot Centers, projected to be far and away the largest users of Cessna’s two-place Model 162 SkyCatcher Light Sport Aircraft [LSA]. We caught up with the Kings on Tuesday afternoon at Oshkosh and asked them what essentials they plan to include in their upcoming Model 162 pilot training course they’re designing for both Sport and Private Pilot syllabuses that will be taught at CPCs.
“Well, first, let’s be clear about the Model 162. It’s going to be a modern-day Cessna 150 with a whole lot more capabilities than a Cessna 150. Sure, it’s an LSA, but you’re still in an airplane that has to go a lethal speed just to get airborne. It’s a light plane that’s virtually as fast as some older Cessna 172 trainers,” John King asserted.
The Kings believe that Federal Aviation Regulations provide plenty of latitude for judgment when it comes to sport pilot training requirements. Sport pilots are licensed to fly a wide range of sport aircraft from 28 knot powered parachutes to 120 knots LSAs. “I like that aspect. But, we’re going to have exercise our judgment so that sport pilots are trained to be capable of flying a 120 KTAS airplane,” King explained.
Both Kings believe that bare minimum sport pilot training requirements aren’t sufficient to train pilots properly, especially if they’ll be flying a Cessna 162. They believe that pilots training for both sport and private pilot ratings should have emergency instrument, special use airspace and communications proficiency, especially since most Cessna 162 aircraft will be operated by Cessna Pilot Centers located at tower-controlled airports.
They’re especially focused on inadvertent IMC training, even though that and night flying training aren’t required for sport pilot certification. “It’s a whole lot harder to predict when you’re going to fly into IMC inadvertently than when you’re going to fly into darkness,” quipped Martha King.
“I just don’t feel comfortable training a pilot who doesn’t have an emergency IMC capability in this class of aircraft,” John King added. The Kings believe that essentials of sport pilot training must include these basics of private pilot training.
They also believe that Model 162 pilots must be trained to fly with the newly announced Garmin G300 flat-panel avionics system. It will have GPS navigation and other features that go far beyond the capabilities of most other LSAs. G300 options for the Model 162 include a second flat-panel display with XM satellite radio weather and perhaps a terrain awareness capability. The Kings intend to include those aspects of flying the Cessna 162 in the LSA training course they will create for Cessna.
“Building an LSA is tough. But it’s even harder to build an LSA that’s a Cessna of the company’s standard for safety, reliability and maintainability. Because it’s a Cessna we know it will fly like a Cessna. There are a lot of LSAs out there and the handling characteristics of many are not all that good because that’s not required by ASTM regulations. But Cessna has high standards. The 162 will have good handling characteristics and it will be thoroughly tested before the first aircraft is delivered.”
The Kings intend to have the Model 162 training course live up to Cessna’s high standards for both aircraft and pilot training. “Training is all about creating pilots capable of being pilots-in-command, whether they’re flying LSAs or Cessna Citations. The sport pilot rating has the same PIC obligations as an ATP. We’re going to train sport pilots who are truly capable of being PICs because we know that some of them eventually might be flying Citations,” John King said.
