Insurance Discount May Pay for Your BPPP Training - American ...

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ABS Air Safety Foundation
By Thomas P. Turner
Use It or Lose It
ASF spends a lot of time and your money to create
the products and services that add great value to ABS
membership. Like your airplane, a lot of the expense occurs
during initial acquisition (course and event development),
but it’s even more costly to operate, maintain, and up date
programs like BPPP and the Service Clinics once we have
them. ABS already had to change the delivery method of
BPPP because costs were rising and not enough members
were enrolling in the course for us to recover our expenses
through tuition.
If you think programs like BPPP LIVE, BPPP Online+Flight,
and the ASF Service Clinics are important ABS member
services, please support them by enrolling. You’ll get unmatched
safety education, training, and mainte nance advice,
and we’ll get enough income through tuition to provide and
enhance these vital programs. Without your participation
we cannot continue these services. Remember ASF is a
not-for-profit corporation. Unlike most other pilot and
technician training providers, ABS/ASF is not putting on
these programs to make a profit. We offer them at breakeven
costs solely for the benefit of our members, to protect
lives and preserve the Beechcraft fleet. Please enroll in BPPP
and a Service Clinic in 2013 – these member programs are
for you!
Working with AOPA
I am honored to represent ABS in a series of upcoming
AOPA Air Safety Institute video segments with AOPA
Foundation President Bruce Landsberg. Bruce and I spent
a day in early November in the AOPA LIVE video studio
in Frederick, Maryland, taping three AOPA Foundation
programs on making safe takeoffs and landings that will
appear some time in early 2013. Watch for an announcement
on www.bonanza.org and at www.aopa.org.
While at AOPA Headquarters I sat in on a meeting
of the FAA’s Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) on
aircraft certification and simplification of the process used
to certify aircraft, aircraft parts, and Supplemental Type
Certificates (STCs). The ARC consists of FAA headquarters
staff, AOPA, and a host of Original Equipment Manufacturers
(OEMs), STC holders, engineers and other stakeholders.
The hope is that by streamlining the FAR 23 certification
process, especially for safety improvements (shoulder
harness and air bags are two frequently cited examples),
aircraft and equipment will be less expensive, and safety
devices will appear on the market more quickly and be more
widely adopted. As a result general aviation aircraft will be
safer, and the crashes they do have will be more survivable.
I was able to provide some input about hoped-for safety
improvements in ABS-type airplanes, as well as changes
to the rules to permit more preventive maintenance to be
performed by the aircraft owner (preventive maintenance
requirements and authority are contained in Appendix A
to FAR 43).
Thanks goes to my friend and regular contact Rob
Hackman of AOPA Regulatory Affairs, who invited ABS
to the meeting.
ABS Leading the
Type Clubs
On behalf of ABS I am the
chair man of the Experimental
Aircraft Association-sponsored
Type Club Coalition. The TCC is an
organization of aircraft type clubs,
including ABS, Cirrus Owners
and Pilots Association, Cessna Pilots Association, Malibu/
Mirage Owners and Pilots Association, the T-34 Association,
and 17 other membership groups that represent “types” of
general aviation aircraft and operations. The purpose of the
TCC is to develop and share pilot training best practices,
to benefit from each others’ experience and directly attack
the most common causes of fatal
general aviation crashes.
As an example of the benefit of
the TCC, the Cirrus Pilot Proficiency
Program (CPPP) has some very
good training modules on critical
decision-making in emergencies that
we can adapt for the BPPP program.
And of course most of the industry
looks to BPPP as the premier body
of type-specific training knowledge
and technique.
Recently Jack Pelton, retired CEO of
Cessna Aircraft, was elected Chairman
6 AMERICAN BONANZA SOCIETY JANUARY 2013