Meet BPT Companion Course
Graduate Stephanie Stone Horton

 

 BPT: How many BPT Companion Clinics have you attended?

Stephanie: This is my fourth.

 BPT:  Why do you come to the BPT Companion Clinics?

Stephanie: I come every year for refresher training — for, you know, the worst case scenario. God forbid something should happen to my pilot-in-command and then I would suddenly become pilot-in-command. So, I want to be confident that I could handle the emergency and get us down safely.

 BPT: Do you feel like you’re capable of that, based on the training you receive at BPT?

Stephanie: Yes. Every time I leave here, it gives me a big boost of confidence.

 BPT: That’s good. What are some of the most helpful things you’ve learned from the Clinic?

Stephanie:  Oh goodness!  There are so many in the ground school section. They keep very focused on what you need to do to accomplish the task of getting the plane down safely. They don’t provide a lot of extraneous detail. They focus on emergency things such as if you have a pilot who is incapacitated and unconscious, how to crank the seat, his seat back and put your purse over the forehead to keep his body from interfering with the controls. That’s a very important thing to do first. They help you prioritize for everything and how to communicate your situation. Then when I go up with the instructor, we can go through all these things and he takes me through landings, and so all comes together for me.

 BPT:  How do you feel about the quality of the BPT instructors?

Stephanie: They’re always top, top rate. They’re so good and they’re so highly experienced. John Andrick, my flight instructor and ground school instructor, works in the Air Traffic Control System. He’s so knowledgeable, yet he can translate things into something that makes sense for the non-pilot.