As the Diamond DA42 Twin Star climbed northeast over Florida's coastline after departing Daytona Beach's Runway 7L, I grinned empa-thetically as Will Romualdo's mul-tiengine CFI student dealt with the process of correctly managing a simulated engine failure from the right seat. How many years had it been since I recited, "Dead foot, dead engine, mixture, props, throttle, identify, verify, feather"? The years that had passed weren't nearly as significant as the fact I was trusting my rear end to a man who wasn't born until after I had been hired by the airline from which I am now retired. Even more ironic, the combined flight time logged for the pilots seated directly in front of me was less than one-quarter of my career total. But I was still relatively comfortable. Why?
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