I don’t see a need to erase waypoints. If I get farther down the line just touch that waypoint and enter direct. I have been vectored off arrivals and then vectored back on. Convenient to have the waypoints there if needed. Rare.

No condemnation taken. But I do have a few hours flying single pilot too. Quite familiar how it works. I have my own 500 I fly SP.
the only guys I see write everything down first are the brand new guys. So that’s not an airline standard.
I follow the same checklist procedures and use the same style checklists we use there even when SP. You’d be surprised how much simpler they are. Crew procedures can easily be adapted for SP use. And I bet if I was wearing a tie at your Flight Safety recurrent and showed you this saying flight safety has devised these simple procedures to enhance your cockpit safety you’d be all ears. But coming from an airline crew pilot, they probably don’t have any idea what they are talking about.

When thinking of Legacy Citations, is there still an abundance of used parts available to keep them flying relatively inexpensively? For example, my understanding is that salvaged engines are used instead of overhauling timed out engines. At some point, the supply is going to dry up. How long until owners can't keep their old Citations in the air?

There is an excellent supply of parts, both new and ARA, I can't think of anything that's difficult to obtain right now.

Engines, it depends... -5A's and 5D's are difficult to come by.

Mike Tarver can expand on this, he lives this stuff!

Be careful of counting on used, working engines being available on the market when you need them several years from now.

The King Air B200 series is the most popular version of the most popular turboprop of all time. It uses PT6A-42 engines.

There are almost none available on a shelf ready to fly today.

A very long time.

Lots of parts out there, big ecosystem, relatively simple design with parts shared across so many models.

A plane sold 15 years ago with some fancy electronic flight deck is in more danger of being grounded from parts issues than a legacy Citation.

People are having enough trouble keeping GNS 430 operating, now imagine your airplane MUST have one of those to fly. Most newer models are exactly like that.

Mike C.

There's definitely a balance to strike when flying SP between writing everything down and writing nothing down. Sometimes the knee board plays the role of co-pilot, and sometimes it gets in the way (like a co-pilot). Writing nothing down can be just as bad as writing everything down. It depends on the moment.

In climb/cruise/descent, I tend to write down frequencies given, altitudes, headings - then read back to ATC what I wrote down. Then I'll twiddle knobs and push buttons based on what I wrote down, double check that what's displayed matches what I wrote, then put a check next to what I wrote down signifying I have crossed checked these things. It mimics what a crew does, only without the crew.

However, if deep in an arrival in busy airspace and getting shotgun headings/altitudes/etc, I won't write anything down. What I do in the moment depends on the moment.

There's definitely a balance to strike when flying SP between writing everything down and writing nothing down. Sometimes the knee board plays the role of co-pilot, and sometimes it gets in the way (like a co-pilot). Writing nothing down can be just as bad as writing everything down. It depends on the moment.

In climb/cruise/descent, I tend to write down frequencies given, altitudes, headings - then read back to ATC what I wrote down. Then I'll twiddle knobs and push buttons based on what I wrote down, double check that what's displayed matches what I wrote, then put a check next to what I wrote down signifying I have crossed checked these things. It mimics what a crew does, only without the crew.

However, if deep in an arrival in busy airspace and getting shotgun headings/altitudes/etc, I won't write anything down. What I do in the moment depends on the moment.

I've develop a "direct to box" approach for much of this.

If ATC says "contact..." I reach over and hit the standby frequency box, and then dial in the numbers as they speak them to me. Then I read back what I typed in. Pause briefly, then hit "XFER" to put it directly into active.

This is faster than finding paper and pen and more accurate since you avoid a two step transfer (ATC to paper to box). You avoid that "is that a 1 or a 7 I wrote down?" confusion, too.

It is always just one touch to get to the frequency entry box on the GTN, so I find I am fast enough to do this without getting behind.

I do the same for a heading, I have dedicated knobs for that with my GCU 485, I dial it in, and read back what I dialed. Same for altitude.

This direct to box approach saves time over any two step process.

The direct to box approach does not work for a GNS 430/530. The "twist knob" method of entry is too slow. It works for a GTN since it is a direct numerical keypad. The responsiveness of the GTN also helps (I have the Xi versions which may be better in this regard).


That is exactly when you need to be most accurate and your brain is most likely to forget.

I try to do the direct to box approach every time and try to rely on my short term memory as little as possible.

Mike C.

The touch screens make it pretty easy to enter data real time. I do fly a legacy G1000 from time to time. Sure makes me miss my touch screens. My partner in the plane still twists knobs and buttons on the G3000. So you can still do that if you want.

You can still get virtually any part BRAND NEW from Textron or Pratt and Whitney for a Legacy Citation or JT15D. You may not like the price but at least it's available.

Parts for the Eclipse Jet or "newer" avionics systems are going to dry up long before the parts for the legacy 500 series dry up.

The beauty of this system is system is simple: planes that reach a point where they aren't worth fixing anymore will be parted out and give up their parts to the more desirable birds and the cycle will repeat. Safety is in numbers, they made LOTS of these airplanes and virtually all the parts across the series are interchangeable to some extent.

Nothing was made to last forever but I see no reason whatsoever to prevent a 501 or 550 from safely flying another 30 years.

There is a feature missing on some small planes’ FMS/GPSes, which is “next waypoint” which leads to the conundrum. Imagine the following. I am flying a departure procedure which consists of the following waypoints:

Alpha
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot

I’m headed to alpha, and ATC says, “after Bravo, cleared Direct Foxtrot.” If I cannot highlight Bravo and designate Foxtrot as the next waypoint, I have two choices: wait until I reach Bravo and then hit Direct To Foxtrot (and potentially miss doing this because of workload), or I delete the waypoints in between.

The problem arises if I delete the waypoints and then ATC says something like, “for traffic, proceed direct to Delta and continue the departure.” Ooops. I deleted everything and now need to reload the departure. Annoying in the least; a pain when things get busy.

There are a couple airports I fly out of on a regular basis where I get the “After B cleared direct F” clearance in a plane that doesn’t have the “next waypoint” feature. It’s a PITA.

I do Option 1 for the reasons you state - I don't want to have to reenter waypoints. I just write the instruction down on my kneeboard and then I monitor it until time to jump to the given waypoint. I also always load full approaches with a transition - never Vectors. I have had it where I was being vectored and then given a "Proceed direct X, cleared RNAV blah" and if I had loaded the approach with Vectors that way point would not have been there.

It would be a simple software addition to the Garmin to allow you to touch Foxtrot and then have a "use as next waypoint" option that would then cause the "leg line" to show going from B to F.

100%. The only time I put pen to paper in the air is for a route amendment. Let's all adopt this please, it avoids those annoying pauses on busy frequencies. You need to respond immediately and this is the best way to do it.

This is why one of my favorite features on newer audio panels is the replay of the last (30ish on mine) transmission. No paper here either, but for reroutes, I will use FF's scratch pad.