The Piper Meridian: Flying the Pattern with Dick Rochfort

Dick Rochfort is a Master Certified Flight Instructor providing excellent training, pre-purchase consulting, aircraft relocation and expert witness services to owners, pilots and instructors of the Piper PA46 aircraft. He holds ATP, Commercial and Gold Seal Flight Instructor Certificates with SEL, SES, MEL, CFII, MEI, and CE-525S ratings. He has been a full-time flight instructor working exclusively in PA46 aircraft (all variants) since 1992 and has over 10,000 hours in Make/Model.

[@tommyn47]

Happy New Year! Another great video much appreciated…. Thanks

[@RWRPilotTraining]

Happy new year! Thank you. Fly Safely - Train Often .. DR

[@markspitzer174]

Nice video. Does this Meridian have mismatched sky and roll pointers on its artificial horizons? If so, that is a set-up for confusion if the standby horizon should ever be truly needed. I’ve read that best practice is that the artificial horizons should all be either sky or roll pointers.

[@RWRPilotTraining]

Hi Mark.. Good eye! The mismatch is because this pilot was disconnecting the AP and not getting rid of the FD. We were working on other things so I did not make any OTS corrections. BTW.. I have both your PA46 books. Both are excellent and very thorough. They are my favorite reference books. Thank you. Fly Safely - Train Often .. DR

[@nicokostiuk1840]

Hey Dick hello from Mexico, I have been watching your videos for years now and have always learnt from then. I also have been bugging you about a certain airport in the world where the challenge is to land in and take off. I was doing some research yesterday of St Barts airport and the aircraft that can acutely get in and out of there. I went then to the website of Piper to just do a quick look to see if the M350 and M600 could get into this airport as I just assumed they could based on the runway length there of 2100 feet. I also notice other aircraft like the PC12 and some twin otters easy get into there. But on the piper website i noticed M350 needs just over 1900 feet (50 foot obstacle) but the M600 needs like 2500 plus? My question is based on the published numbers of the M600 can you legally try an attempt knowing you need 2500 feet to land? I didn't look at the PC 12 distance needed yet maybe i will now as I type this. I guess my follow up question is can you get into this runway on a M600 if weight is different to make it into the 2100 length? I am hoping the day happens where one of your customers ask you to get to this airport (that would be so much fun to watch you train there and publish the video). You must laugh at why is this person so obsessed with this stupid airport? I don't know why myself , I just enjoy all these TH-cam Pilots that go there in small aircraft and show their training. Cheers Nico

[@RWRPilotTraining]

Hi Nico.. I have not been to St Barts, but I know with proper training it is entirely possible to land a PA46 at St Barts. I hope I get a chance to make that video!