by Rob Finfrock, CJP Newsletters Editor
There isn’t much more that can be said about Charlie Precourt and his work to help Citation pilots fly more safely. On the closing night of CJP 2023, members gathered at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to honor Charlie and his incredible contributions to CJP, Citation operators and pilots of all light aircraft.
1) I first met you when you spoke at the 2014 CJP Convention at the Greenbrier, which in hindsight seems to have been a first step toward your taking a more active role in the association. What led you to become more involved in CJP?
I’m really good friends with Stuart Fred. He and I have flown together for many years and when I was in Houston, we had hangars that weren’t too far apart. He was among the founding members [of CJP] but I wasn’t flying Citations at the time, and I was still at NASA.
But what really triggered it was years later, the CJ4 accident at [Cleveland’s Burke] Lakefront. The Executive Committee and the board basically got together and said, we really should band together and see if we can’t do something more about the way we deal with safety and provide mutual support. And so, they called me and asked if I’d be interested in helping them stand up the safety committee and of course I said yes. One thing led to the next after that.
2) What is something from your time working with CJP that stands out to you?
A couple of things. The one item that stands out the most is our mutual recognition of runway overruns being our biggest nemesis. and that we could get with Presage Group to help mitigate that and put a lot of resources into doing the Safe to Land(sm) project. It’s becoming an industry-leading kind of initiative.
The folks at FlightSafety have introduced it to the Gulfstream community, we were the first in general aviation and certainly in single pilot operations to have undergone that exercise. The airlines had done it, and we talked to the folks at Southwest and Air Canada about how they went through the process. And I think it’s the kind of thing that is going to make a difference across all general aviation, because you’re really changing the way you approach – no pun intended – the way you look at go-around criteria versus stable approach criteria. It’s something that goes beyond CJP itself.
3) Would you consider Safe to Land(sm) to be your greatest contribution to Citation safety to date?
If you want to pick a single item, I think [Safe to Land] has the longest and farthest-reaching effectiveness to the whole industry going forward. It should be something that applies for flight schools on up. It’s just a different way to think.
Rather than taking credit, we really need to acknowledge what Presage Group had done with the airlines to start it. The fact that we adopted it, knowing we needed something like it for GA and for single pilot ops, is probably the thing that’s been the most significant for us.
But that’s a single tactical item. CJP has safety initiatives that span the spectrum, from members being able to share issues and stories and questions and answers on the forums. all the way through to the Safety Standdown, our educational content, to our FOQA program to our Save to Land program to our SOPs and so forth. If I were to point at a single claim that we could make as a Safety Committee, it’s this number of initiatives that collectively have made a huge difference in our accident rate.
Safe to Land is still in a rollout phase, so I can’t point to it and say we haven’t had any runway excursions because of Safe to Land. I think there’s a likelihood that’s the case, but I can’t prove it yet. What I can say is that we have an accident/incident- free streak that is linked in some fashion to all these initiatives collectively, and Safe to Land is among them.
4) The CJP Hall of Honor recognizes the legacies of those who have made significant contributions to the Citation community. What are your thoughts on the work you continue to perform with CJP, not only for current members but also for future Citation pilots?
I think I would just borrow a couple of our phrases. One of them is, ‘we don’t tell you how to fly your airplane, we give you good things to think about when you do.’ And, ‘we strive to show you what good looks like.’ Those two sayings encompass the way CJP approaches our community. We aren’t a flight department that owns our pilots as employees, but we are a collective group of folks who care about each other and about safety.
I think the legacy will be in that approach we’re taking and in the culture that we’re building, and that will live on if people remember the method that I just described, which is, we’re not here to put anything in front of you, as you have to do it this way. We’re trying to give you best practices that we’ve all shared and learned. And this ability to share is what will encourage people to come for more.
And I think you’ve seen that with our membership groups and be interested in coming to the stand down in the convention, and so forth. So, if anything lives on, I hope it’s that whole approach to doing business.
5) Shifting trajectories a bit… What is the worst astronaut joke you’ve ever heard, and do you remember the first time David Miller told it to you?
(Laughs) Well, what I find most funny is the fact that he thinks he’s my boss (as demonstrated above) and my [space]suit is a costume! He’s big on costumes, as we’ve seen.
6) Any closing thoughts about being inducted into the CJP Hall of Honor?
What I really want to say to CJP members is that I really appreciate the gesture in selecting me for the CJP Hall of Honor, and the nice words that some very close friends have said about me and, more particularly, about my wife and her support through the years for what I do.
What we’ve done collectively to prevent accidents, and to show that this particular this three-year streak we’re on is far more of a reward than the recognition itself. For me, the fact we’ve been so successful as an association is the best reward I could ever ask for.
All photos by Stratton DV Imaging