With an increasing focus on safety management systems (SMS), planned stand-downs, upset prevention and recovery training (UPRT), and other business aviation safety initiatives, the Mooney Aircraft Pilots Association (MAPA) Pilot Proficiency Program (PPP) exemplifies GA’s contributions to the private aviation safety push. For the past 28 years, the MAPA Safety Foundation (MSF) has staged five PPPs annually across the U.S., and the September session in Manchester, New Hampshire, followed the playbook established with the first: “Classroom, and then flying the first day; flying, and then classroom the second; and Sunday for finishing up for weather contingencies,” said Jerry Johnson, an MSF director who helped develop the program.
Location requirements for the PPPs are the same today, as well: a radar environment, an FBO willing and able to accommodate the group, and a full-service hotel. Signature Flight Support played host in Manchester, with an expansive third- floor area serving as the classroom.
Presented in lecture/slideshow style, with questions encouraged, the on-ground portion covered a Mooney-centric range of operational, procedural, and mechanical issues.
Each attendee received a 160-page binder with chapters on these and other topics and a reference book’s worth of performance charts, recommended power settings, and operating airspeeds covering every model from the early 1960s’ vintages to today’s.
The training flights offer instruction from experienced Mooney CFIIs. The high-performance piston single Mooneys are known for speed and efficiency as well as their demand for precise airspeed control, and these are among the limited number of teachers with the expertise to set a pilot straight.
Each PPP typically draws 20 to 25 registrants. Mechanical issues, weather, and late-arising obligations cause a few no-shows; we were 17 of 20, hailing from North Carolina, Ohio, Canada, and points in between. (The $845 fee for the three-day course is fully refundable.)
Flight Time
Each instructor flies with two attendees, so only half the airplanes are airborne at once, but that can still strain some airports and airspace, so training is planned in coordination with local and regional ATC beforehand. In a Day One presentation, Adam McWhirter, an ATC specialist from the Manchester Tower, explained airport procedures and hot spots, the recommended training areas, and encouraged attendees to communicate any needs or requests to controllers.
The first of the two-hour flights consists of VFR training covering basic maneuvers, slow flight, takeoffs and landings, and any problem areas pilots want help with. The second Day One flight slot is at night, a great opportunity to regain long lapsed night currency, as well.
The Saturday morning flight is IFR refresher/recurrency training under the hood or in actual conditions, perhaps the most valuable flight time a GA pilot can get. Pilots earn FAA Wings program credits, as well.
Meanwhile back on the ground, the non-flying pilots are hangar flying and swapping tales and tips, buttonholing MSF experts with questions or catching up on personal business.
The seven directors—instructors all—of MSF, a 501c3 non-profit organization, are unsalaried. “It’s a labor of love,” said Ted Corsones, who’s been with MSF for 27 years. “We don’t do this to satisfy our ego; we do it to make aviation safer.”
Interestingly, the American Bonanza Society (ABS), on which MAPA’s program is based according to Johnson, stopped holding its PPPs and complementary fight training in 2012 and switched to an online program.
Tom Turner, executive director of the ABS Air Safety Foundation, cited several factors behind the redirection. First, the PPP wasn’t able to provide transition training to new Beechcraft pilots, and with 20 percent of Beech accidents occurring in the first year of ownership, leadership felt the PPP wasn’t meeting the foundation’s mission. “We looked for a way to have a more responsive program,” Turner said.
Additionally, “enrollment in the program declined substantially” following the 2008 financial downturn, with members reporting “scheduling issues and the cost of getting to a remote location and housing yourself for two to four days” made attendance difficult.
Meanwhile, the cost of transporting and housing 20 to 25 flight instructors for the PPP “became almost catastrophic,” Turner said.
Oversaturated training space and fatigue also became issues. The instructors flew three four-hour training modules over the course of the weekend, leading to “a lot of mistakes and minor accidents,” toward the end of training, said Turner.
Before that time, ABS viewed instruction as a “profit center,” Turner said, and PPP tuition was $1,500. “In 2012 we made a philosophical shift to a not-for-profit safety corporation,” and put the PPP online, available at no charge. ABS members who complete the online on-ground program can then take the flight training portion with a local ABS-authorized instructor for $435, with $400 going to the instructor. About one-third of ABS’s 9,400 members have taken advantage of the online training, Turner said.
Now ASF has “reintroduced live events” in the form of BPPP Live, daylong safety-focused gatherings, five per year, that Turner said draw more than 500 attendees each.