Page 16 - Volume 12 Number 8

Ask the Expert
“War Stories” – PART 2
by Tom Clements
Based on feedback from last month’s article in which I related some interesting personal experiences – “War Stories” – I am continuing with additional tales this month. I hope you find them enlightening and enjoyable.
Split Flaps in an A90
In the early 1980s my company, Flight Review, Inc., received a call from a fellow who had just bought a used 1967 A90 and wanted to schedule initial training for both his hired pilot and himself. At that time, I was living in Hayward, California, but spent hundreds of days a year traveling to conduct on-site training. This gentleman also lived in California and the airplane was going through a pre-buy inspection at the Beechcraft West facility in Hayward, so we arranged to complete the ground school in one of Beechcraft West’s conference rooms. Ah, I could sleep in my own bed for a change!
The five days of ground training went well and then the flight training phase began. The owner was the first to fly, while his pilot rode as an observer in the cabin. I decided to head northeast out of the San Francisco Bay Area to utilize the not-too-busy airspace and airport in Marysville, about 90 miles away. This was the owner’s very first time flying a King Air. We began with a thorough preflight inspection, both interior and exterior, started the engines, taxied to the run-up area and ran through all the system checks. We took off in lovely VFR conditions, avoided the SFO Class B airspace, and climbed up to 15,500 feet. We discussed and demonstrated setting up cruise conditions, talked about descent planning, used the autopilot a bit (the old H-14 unit didn’t have lots of modes to demonstrate!) and came down to 8,500 feet to do some air work – steep turns, slow flight and stalls. We never got past the slow flight.
14 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
AUGUST 2018