Private aircraft insurance underwriters had a problem. The Comanche by Piper is one of the great private light aircraft of all time. With retractable landing gear, variable pitch prop, metal skin, pickled airframe, a cruising speed well in excess of 200 knots in some variations and a number of highly advanced design and safety features, the Comanche is truly a high performance aircraft. However, the fleet was outliving the flight mechanics that had grown up with them. To make matters more acute, a new generation of pilots regularly graduate from lower-tech aircraft to the Comanche’s more complicated systems. Overlooked bulletins, accidental gear-up landings, and ignorance of the unique flying characteristics of the Comanche, especially in the light twin variant, occur all too frequently.

Producer Christel Crane and Director Calvin Crane suggested that avoiding a single major accident could easily offset the significant cost of developing a film series and collateral materials to address this issue. The underwriters agreed. Our team worked with the top technical experts on this aircraft and spent months in production. Working with both a single engine and twin variant, all the critical technical bulletins were covered. Aircraft were dismantled as on-camera talent walked the viewer through the important steps of inspection and maintenance. Preflight and flight films were also produced that took viewers through emergency procedures like emergency landing gear deployment.

Calvin grew up in a Piper Super Cub and Stinson Voyager and spent subsequent years as a cameraman in Vietnam. His time spent on other aircraft projects such as the F-15 program for McDonnell Douglas was invaluable. Christel made sure that crew and talent kept safety issues paramount all times, interfaced with aircraft technical personnel on the complicated scripts and directly supervised all script work and postproduction. The result was a multi-part film series that not only dramatically reduced incidents for pilots, but was also filmed without incident… even though a number of air-to-air shots were executed. In addition, the sponsors’ secondary goal of being perceived as proactive to the benefit of insureds was achieved.