I was approached by a member of the Buttonville Flying Club to be a safety pilot for him so that he may do some approaches to keep his IFR currency. This was to be done in the owners aircraft, a 1980 Beechcraft Baron 55.

This was my first time in a Baron and the only other twin I have to compare it to is the Seminole. My first thoughts:

- The Barons wingspan seemed to be a lot smaller at 11.53m (versus the Seminoles’ 11.77m)

- This particular aircraft had the throttle quadrant …

So I started studying the G1000 (Nav III) for the Cessna and spent 20 minutes in the simulator trying to figure out how to tune an NDB when I looked it up in the manual:

The G1000 does not support tuning of the ADF in Nav III aircraft. ADF tuning is accomplished through the Bendix/King KR 87 ADF Radio. ADF volume must also be adjusted through the KR 87.

A top of the line system doesn’t even have an ADF/NDB radio built in? WTF.

So you can get ADF info on the PFD, …

Firstly, lets answer the question I posed in my last post.

In the Boomerang, which is the critical engine? There is none. In fact, there is no asymmetrical thrust created when one engine is inoperative.

The next month I plan on getting checked out in the C172 equipped with the G1000 avionics package.

Once that is done, there are at least two cross country flights i’d like to make. First, is solo to North Bay (perhaps with my girlfriend). This is my pre commercial x-country. I really don’t want to jump into a …