Tom Clements

Tom learned to fly in 1962, while still in high school, with no intention of ever being a professional pilot. However, he found that life has a way of turning out differently than planned, at times, and after college and a stint in the Navy as an instructor in the Nuclear Power School, Tom found himself on the road to a life in aviation. By then, he had earned his Commercial Pilot's license as well as CFI and multi-engine ratings. Beech Aircraft Corporation hired him as a ground and flight instructor in their factory Training Center. At the time, it was quite a small operation with only five instructors providing factory checkouts to pilots picking up new King Airs and Dukes. Employed there for five years, from 1972 through 1976, he experienced a boom time of heavy growth in aviation, and he left as manager of the center with a staff of eighteen employees. One of his most enjoyable jobs at Beech was being the first instructor for the Super King Air 200 upon its introduction in 1974. He learned about the airplane from its test pilots and flew the first prototype. He has been associated with this fine aircraft ever since.

He transferred to Beechcraft West of Hayward, California, a factory-owned distributorship, to try his hand as an airplane salesman. Not finding that to his liking, he took a job as Chief Pilot for Beacon Oil Company of Hanford, California, flying a Super King Air 200 as well as an A36 Bonanza.

He saw a need for high-quality, on-site, King Air and Duke training and formed Flight Review, Inc. in 1979 for the purpose of providing service in that field. The company prospered and its training programs were finally bought by SimCom (now Pan Am International Flight Training Academy) in January 2000. He worked for eighteen months with SimCom to aid in the transition and now is semi-retired, enjoying more time for contract flying with Pam, as well as golf and refurbishing and flying his Cessna 180.

Tom has logged over 18,000 flight hours, is a Gold Seal CFI, and has type ratings in the Learjet, Douglas DC-3, BE-300, and BE-1900. He has written numerous articles for both "Kilo Alpha," the newsmagazine of the King Air Operator's Group as well as for "Twin & Turbine" magazine.