SimCom instructor Ted Otto knows the PC-12. With about 3,000 hours flying the roomy single-engine Swiss turboprop, Otto is one of those rare pilots who not only knows his subject intimately but also knows how to share his knowledge with pilots who travel to SimCom Training Centers’ Orlando, Fla. headquarters to learn how to fly the PC-12. I spent five days with Otto at SimCom attending the PC-12 initial class, then shortly afterwards flew two PC-12 flights to see how the airplane performs in the real world.
At SimCom, classes are small, with just two or three students. My classmate, Bruce Taylor, who had just purchased a -9 PC-12 but hadn’t yet flown it, came for the initial course to prepare to fly his new airplane. Taylor has a few hundred fixed-wing hours and many more helicopter hours. His last airplane was a Cirrus SR22, but he needed more range and speed. The PC-12 would be a fairly big step, combining the retractable landing gear and constant-speed propeller of a high-performance single with a turbine engine, pressurization and the challenges of properly loading a single-engine airplane that can carry a huge load and about seven hours of fuel.
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