Who Does the Coach Call? Lessons from a Cross-Border Ferry Flight

A 100 NM ferry flight, an unfamiliar Cessna 182, a closing weather window and a sunset that wouldn't move. Notes from a day that tested every decision-making rule I teach.

Yesterday I was hired to ferry a Cessna 182 from the Lower Mainland to Seattle. The aircraft was Canadian-registered and had been bought by an American buyer in Oklahoma, who needed a Canadian pilot to fly the portion in Canadian airspace. The plan was simple: the buyer's pilot would fly to Seattle, I would meet him there, and I would hand over the aircraft.

It's only 100 NM down the coast. How hard could it be?

As it turned out, the day put every part of my decision-making to the test. I'll use the PARE model (Pilot, Aircraft, EnviRonment, External Pressures) to walk through it.

Pilot

I was rested and held all the required licences. I have plenty of experience across different aircraft types, configurations and levels of equipment. I have completed dozens of similar ferry flights over the years, many of them far more complex than this one. I earned my Instrument Rating 24 years ago, before GPS was an IFR tool. I have over 6,000 hours, I'm an instructor at the airline I fly for, and I provide in-aircraft instruction and coaching for owners with a focus on decision making, advanced IFR operations and systems management.

On paper, the pilot side of the ledger was not the concern.

Aircraft

The aircraft was a C182 I had never flown, and a review of the logbooks showed it had flown only twice in the past year. It was equipped with basic instruments, a VOR/ILS, a LOC receiver and an ADF, plus an outdated VFR-only GPS. No IFR GPS, no moving map and no autopilot.

Environment

A wet system was moving through the Pacific Northwest (or the Pacific Southwest, depending on which side of the border you're on). The morning brought rain and low IFR conditions everywhere, so the launch decision was pushed to the afternoon. The forecast called for a drying trend through the afternoon and evening. Sunset was at 18:52 local. As the rain passed, it left behind low ceilings and marginal visibility.

External pressures

I had told the client the aircraft would be delivered to Seattle, with Bellingham as the backup. He had flown his pilot to Seattle, where he was patiently waiting for me. As pilots we are mission-oriented. We want to deliver on what we said we would do.

I kept the client updated all day and never left the decision to him. Every time, his response was the same: “Thanks, stay safe!” That is the best kind of client to have, and it still didn't remove the pressure I was putting on myself.

Personal minimums

I am a strong advocate for personal minimums: a set of rules you establish before a decision needs to be made. They aren't absolute, but they give you a baseline to fall back on. If you deviate from them, the deviation needs to be justified and mitigated.

Two of my general rules were in play on this trip:

1. I prefer not to fly an aircraft I'm unfamiliar with in IFR conditions for the first couple of legs.
2. I don't fly an aircraft I'm unfamiliar with at night.

The idea is to stack the deck in my favour and leave room to deal with abnormal situations and unknowns.

What actually happened

The morning weather looked poor. I watched it for a few hours, then called the client and his pilot to say the flight was scrubbed for the day and we would look again the next morning.

The aircraft was an hour's drive from home, so I went out to see it anyway. I wanted to do a walk-around, run it up and fuel it so there would be no surprises the next morning. I brought my flight bag and a change of clothes, just in case.

Once I was at the airport watching the radar and forecast, it looked like a break would open up around 1600. That would make a VFR flight to Bellingham possible, with ceilings around 1,400 ft and 5 SM visibility. Getting the aircraft to Bellingham would meet the primary objective, which was to import it into the United States. I called the pilot, who had just landed in Seattle from Oklahoma, and told him not to book a hotel and to stand by.

Plan A was still to get to Seattle VFR if conditions allowed. Plan B was to land in Bellingham, rent a car, drive to Seattle and bring the American ferry pilot back to the aircraft.

Around 1500 the weather improved enough for a short VFR flight to Bellingham. The aircraft performed well, and I tested the IFR nav radio on the way in. After a friendly visit with US Customs and Border Protection, I parked the aircraft and went into the FBO to look at the weather for the next leg. The pilot in Seattle told me he had rented a car and was going to spend the wait at the Museum of Flight.

The last leg

Bellingham was now marginal VFR. Seattle was “easy IFR.” In between, conditions were low IFR, with visibility under a mile and ceilings below 500 ft. At the departure and arrival airports the bases were between 900 and 2,000 ft, with tops reported at 3,000 ft.

Despite more than 25 years of experience and thousands of hours, I found myself wrestling with my own rules. I could complete the last leg IFR without much difficulty, but it would break my unfamiliar-aircraft rule, made worse by an aircraft with only the bare minimum IFR equipment. The second rule was a hard line: I would not do it at night.

On paper, this was the same equipment I earned my Instrument Rating on. The analog panel wasn't what worried me. It was flying an airframe I didn't know, one that had barely flown in a year, in low IFR with no autopilot to share the load.

I paced around the FBO trying to work out whether I was justifying a bad decision or being overly cautious.

Walking through the FBO, I noticed a flight instructor and a student preparing for an IFR lesson. I put my head in and asked if I could run something by them, explaining that I find another perspective valuable.

No amount of experience makes you too senior to ask for a second opinion. If anything, the more hours you have, the easier it is to talk yourself into something, and the easier it is to let pride keep you from asking. A fresh set of eyes costs nothing, and it doesn't have to come from someone with more experience than you.

I laid out the details. The instructor, Michael Connolly, is also an airline pilot, and he took a threat and error management approach: identify each threat, then discuss the mitigation for each. It's exactly what we do at work, and it felt very familiar.

If you fly in the Bellingham or greater Seattle area and are looking for instrument training, a flight review or an IPC, Michael runs Connolly Aviation out of KBLI. Based on how he worked through my decision with me, he is well worth a call.

The student went a different way: “If you're trying to convince yourself, then it's probably a no.” I was impressed. She will go far.

I left the briefing room without committing either way, but with more to consider. I decided to wait 30 minutes for the next METAR. If it held steady or improved, I would trust my abilities, training and mitigations and go. If it deteriorated, I would call it a day, because that would be the last report that still allowed the flight to finish before dark.

Lined up and holding

The 1700 weather came out and held steady, although the band of moisture was moving toward my destination. I filed IFR, set up the aircraft and pre-briefed everything for a fully analog flight. I received my clearance and taxied out.

As I lined up for departure, the tower advised that Seattle had gone into a full ground stop. The weather had deteriorated, and the stop would last about an hour.

An hour's delay put the arrival after sunset. Flying an unfamiliar aircraft IFR at night was my hard stop, so that was the end of the road. I taxied back to the FBO, tied the aircraft down and called the client and his pilot. The pilot drove two and a half hours to Bellingham and collected the aircraft the next morning.

The part nobody talks about

Before I left, I took one last photo of the aircraft tied down on the ramp. The sky over Bellingham had turned blue. Seattle, meanwhile, had dropped to a mile in rain with a 600 ft ceiling. A few miles made all the difference.

Sitting in the back of an Uber to the border, and then from the border to my truck at Boundary Bay, I watched the sun go down and checked the weather. Sure enough, a little later the destination had improved to MVFR.

I was disappointed, and I knew it was illogical. It “could have worked” if I had waited longer. This is a trap I have coached pilots through for years: trust your ability, but also trust your gut and the information you have, and stay confident in a well-reasoned decision. Knowing all of that didn't make it any easier.

With a client, in an aircraft that was a known quantity, those conditions would have been perfect IFR training weather and well within my experience. That is exactly why the rules exist. The same weather in an unfamiliar airframe with minimal equipment, a closing window and a setting sun is a different flight.

So how do I process it? By writing it down for others to read, and hopefully learn from. Most of all, I want other pilots to know they aren't alone when it comes to the tough calls. Experience doesn't make them go away. It just gives you better tools for making them.

Set your own minimums before the day you need them

My rules held up yesterday because I wrote them before I needed them. If you haven't built your own set yet, the Cardinal Aviation Personal Minimums Tool helps you build them, so the hard calls start from a line you drew on a calm day.

You'll find more tools for pilots on the Cardinal Aviation pilot resources page.

Subpart 604 Update: AC 604-004 Issue 03 and the CARs Changes to Track

Issue 03 does far more than tidy up old guidance, and three separate CARs amendments are moving on their own clocks. Here's what changed and what it means for private operators.

Who actually needs a PORD

The new AC separates two questions that used to get blurred together: which aircraft fall under Subpart 604, and which operators actually have to hold a Private Operator Registration Document.

• A PORD is required for private passenger or goods operations using a large aeroplane over 5,700 kg, a turbojet-powered aeroplane, or a turbine-powered pressurized aeroplane certificated for more than six passengers.
• Other aircraft listed under CAR 604.02, including some turbine, pressurized, or multi-engine types, fall within Subpart 604's scope without automatically requiring a PORD. Those operators generally register only if they want a 604 Special Authorization.
• New in Issue 03: reducing an aircraft to six seats by STC does not remove the PORD requirement if the original type certificate covered more than six passenger seats.

Applying for or amending a PORD

The application procedure is considerably clearer now, and amendments are far less painful than operators have assumed.

• New applications use TC Form 26-0821, filed with the regional office responsible for your main base. Email is preferred.
• Amendments use the same form, but you do not complete it again. Provide the legal name and only what's changing, copying your assigned Principal Operations Inspector.

Aircraft registration, and interim or temporary C of Rs

The registration guidance is new, and one part of it is genuinely useful during an acquisition.

• NACIS pulls aircraft data from CCARCS. The registered owner's name must match the PORD applicant's legal name, unless the aircraft is operated under a lease or custody arrangement recognized under CAR 203.03.
• A PORD can be issued against a properly validated Interim Certificate of Registration, and against a Temporary C of R. That removes a chunk of the chicken-and-egg delay mid-acquisition.

Management personnel

Issue 03 adds an entirely new management-personnel discussion. The emphasis is that your Operations Manager, Chief Pilot, and Maintenance Manager must be qualified when appointed and remain qualified afterward.

• CAR 604.141 still gives the Operations Manager two pathways: hold or have held the licence and rating to act as pilot-in-command on an aircraft you operate, or three years of supervisory experience with an operator of comparable size and complexity.
• All three positions must be free of a conviction under Aeronautics Act 7.3, and free of two or more CARs convictions arising from separate incidents.

Training programs finally match how small operations run

This is the area most worth revisiting. CAR 604 does not require every recurrent subject to be taught together in one annual course, and the AC now says so plainly.

• Three structures are expressly recognized: one combined initial and recurrent course, separate initial and recurrent courses, or modular training delivered progressively across the validity period.
• Emergency procedures elements can be spread across the applicable three-year validity period, as long as everything required is completed within it.
• The tradeoff is a tracking system that proves four things: every subject is covered, each is completed in its validity period, nobody is assigned duties requiring training they haven't finished, and competency was established rather than attendance recorded.

Contracted training stays on the books, not the responsibility

A 604 operator may now expressly contract any part of its training program to an outside provider. The responsibility does not travel with it.

• You must ensure the contracted training matches your Operations Manual, that instructors and checkers are qualified, that training is documented as your manual says, and that records stay available to show CARs compliance.
• An Authorized Training Organization's syllabus can now be incorporated into your Operations Manual by reference instead of reproduced in full.
• The old Airline Transport Pilot Licence training section was dropped. Low impact for most operators, since few programs relied on it.

Your Operations Manual isn't "approved," except where it is

Issue 03 is unusually explicit here, and it's worth knowing regardless of how long you've held a PORD.

• You must maintain a current, compliant Operations Manual, but it is not subject to TC approval as a whole document. It must be available to an inspector on request, which is a different thing.
• The exception is material supporting a Special Authorization. Those portions must be submitted so TC can determine whether the SA requirements are met.

Three changes outside the AC, on their own clocks

Three regulatory amendments sit alongside this AC rather than inside it. One is housekeeping, one is already binding on your pilots, and one is coming this November.

• RVSM (February 26, 2025). CAR 604.56 now points to Canadian Standard 624.56 rather than the older FAA and ICAO references. The operational requirement didn't change; the citation did.
• IFR recency (in force June 17, 2026). CAR 401.05 replaced the six-hours-of-instrument-time standard. After the first six months following a qualifying test or check, a pilot exercising IFR privileges needs six instrument approaches in the preceding six months, flown in an aircraft in actual or simulated IMC, as a qualifying instrument flight instructor, in a Level B, C, or D full-flight simulator, or in an appropriate FTD under qualified supervision. A 604 competency check including instrument procedures resets the clock. Keep records three years.
• Aircraft Operating Manual (effective November 19, 2026). SOR/2025-226 amended CAR 604.37(2)(b). Where an AOM is carried instead of the AFM, it must include performance data, limitations, and certificated noise levels from the AFM, clearly identified as AFM requirements. Delayed coming-into-force gives you runway. Use it.

Do You Need a PORD?

A straight answer for private aircraft owners and flight departments weighing registration under Subpart 604.

If you own a turbine aircraft, or you're building a flight department around one, sooner or later someone will ask whether you need a PORD. It's a fair question, and the answer matters more than most owners realize. Get it wrong in one direction and you're operating outside the regulations. Get it wrong in the other and you've built a compliance program you never actually needed.

Here's the plain version first, then the detail.

What a PORD actually is

PORD stands for Private Operator Registration Document. It's the document Transport Canada issues to register you as a private operator under Subpart 604 of the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs). Once issued, it confirms that your operation is recognized, that your aircraft and key personnel are on file, and that you're authorized to run private operations under a defined set of rules.

This is the system that replaced the old private operator certificate once administered by the Canadian Business Aviation Association. Oversight now sits with Transport Canada directly. One useful feature: a PORD doesn't expire on a fixed date. It stays valid until it's suspended, cancelled, or revoked, so there's no annual renewal cycle to chase.

A PORD is not an Air Operator Certificate. That distinction is the whole ballgame, so let's deal with it head-on.

The line between private and commercial

The first question isn't “do I need a PORD.” It's “am I operating privately or commercially?”

If you carry passengers or goods for hire or reward, that's a commercial operation, and it lives under Part VII of the CARs with an Air Operator Certificate. Different rules, different scrutiny, different cost. A PORD does not cover that.

A private operation is flying your own aircraft for your own purposes, business or personal, without hire or reward. The corporate King Air that moves your executives between plants, the Citation your company owns to compress travel time, the TBM you fly for your own business — these are private operations. That's the world Subpart 604 governs.

When a PORD is mandatory

Assuming you're operating privately, a PORD becomes mandatory once your aircraft crosses a size-and-performance threshold. Under Subpart 604, you must register as a private operator if you're operating any of the following to transport passengers or goods:

— A large aeroplane, meaning one with a maximum certificated take-off weight of more than 5,700 kg;
— A turbo-jet aeroplane; or
— A turbine-powered, pressurized aeroplane certificated for more than six passenger seats.

If your aircraft fits one of those categories and you're flying it privately, registration isn't optional. That captures most business jets and a good number of turboprops. If your aircraft sits below those thresholds — a piston twin, a smaller turboprop under six seats — you're generally not required to hold a PORD at all.

The part most owners miss: you can choose to register

Here's where it gets interesting for owners who assume this is purely a burden to avoid. Even if you're below the mandatory threshold, you can register as a private operator voluntarily.

Why would anyone opt in? Access. Holding a PORD is what lets you apply for the special authorizations under Subpart 604 — the operational approvals that expand where and how you can fly. Reduced vertical separation minimum airspace, certain low-visibility approaches, specific navigation authorities: these come through your operations specifications once you're registered. For an owner flying internationally or into demanding environments, that access can be worth the structure it requires.

That single fact reframes the decision. A PORD isn't only a box Transport Canada makes larger operators tick. For the right operation, it's a tool.

What registration actually asks of you

This is where an honest advisor earns their keep, because a PORD is not just a form you file and forget.

To register, you submit an application to Transport Canada with your legal and trade name, contact information, the names of your operations manager, chief pilot, and maintenance manager, a description of your operating area and bases, and the details of each aircraft you'll operate. Transport Canada issues the document once it's satisfied you own, or are properly authorized to use, those aircraft.

The application is the easy part. Standing behind it is the real commitment:

— An operations manual that documents how your operation actually runs — operational control, flight planning, maintenance, training, and how you manage safety;
— Named accountable people in the operations manager, chief pilot, and maintenance manager roles, who carry real responsibilities rather than titles on a page; and
— Ongoing compliance — keeping the manual current, meeting the conditions in your operations specifications, and operating the way your documents say you do.

None of that is unreasonable. It's the professional scaffolding that separates a serious flight operation from a well-funded improvisation. But it is a genuine, continuing obligation, and it's the reason a PORD decision should be made with clear eyes, not on a hunch.

The signal it sends

There's a dimension to this that rarely makes the spreadsheet, and in my experience it matters as much as the regulatory line. Operating under a PORD is a visible, on-record commitment to running your aircraft to a defined standard. It says your operation has a documented way of doing things, named people accountable for safety and maintenance, and a framework it actually answers to — not just a capable pilot and a good aircraft on any given day.

That signal is read by the people who matter. Your crew know the standard they're held to and the authority they carry. Passengers, whether family or executives, are trusting an operation that has thought carefully about how it manages risk. Insurers and regulators see a structure built for consistency rather than improvisation. And you, as the owner, get the quiet confidence of knowing the operation would hold up to scrutiny on its worst day, not just its best.

So, should you get one?

Three honest cases.

You have to, so do it well. If you're operating a jet, or a large or turbine-pressurized aircraft privately, the question isn't whether to register. It's whether your operation is actually built to the standard the document implies. Plenty of owners hold a PORD and a manual that no longer reflects how they fly. That gap is where risk lives.

You don't have to, but it might serve you. If you're below the threshold and eyeing the special authorizations, registering can open real operational doors. Worth a serious look, weighed against the structure it asks for.

You don't need it, and adding it would only weigh you down. If your flying is straightforward, within Canada, in a smaller aircraft, and you have no need for the special authorizations, registering voluntarily may add obligation without adding value.

The right answer depends on your aircraft, your missions, and how you intend to grow. What it shouldn't depend on is guesswork.

Where Cardinal fits

This is the kind of decision I built Cardinal Aviation to help with. We don't sell aircraft and we don't push vendors — the role is to give you objective guidance that protects your interests and gets the regulatory side right the first time.

If you're weighing a PORD, standing up a flight department, or you already hold one and aren't sure it would hold up to a closer look, I can help you decide whether registration is required, whether it's worth pursuing voluntarily, and what a well-run Subpart 604 operation should look like for your aircraft — from the operations manual to the people who run it. Bringing the professionalism of commercial aviation to private flight is the whole point. A PORD, done properly, is one of the clearest ways to do it.

Managing the Automation: Why Mode Awareness Separates Pilots from Aviators

The autopilot did not remove you from the loop. It changed your job from flying the controls to managing a system — and that is where most automation events begin.

Modern flight decks have made us safer. A good autopilot flies a more precise altitude than any of us can hold by hand, tracks a course to a few tenths of a mile, and takes the fatigue out of a long leg in the weather. That is real capability, and it belongs in the aircraft.

But the automation did not remove the pilot from the loop. It changed the job. You are no longer the servo that moves the controls; you are the manager who decides what the system should do, tells it clearly, and confirms it is doing what you asked. That management task is where most automation-related events actually start. Not with a failure of the equipment, but with a gap between what the pilot believed the aircraft was doing and what it was actually doing.

That gap has a name. It is called a loss of mode awareness, and it is worth understanding well before it costs you an approach, an altitude, or worse.

What “mode” really means

Every autopilot flies in a lateral mode and a vertical mode at all times. The lateral side is holding a heading, tracking a course, or following a lateral navigation path. The vertical side is holding an altitude, flying a vertical speed, chasing a selected airspeed, capturing a glidepath, or following a vertical navigation profile. The aircraft is always doing one thing laterally and one thing vertically, and those two things are the whole story of where the nose is going.

The trouble is that a mode can be armed or it can be active, and the two look similar to a busy pilot. An armed mode is waiting for a condition before it engages. Approach mode armed on the ground does nothing until the aircraft intercepts the localizer and glidepath. Altitude capture armed does nothing until the aircraft approaches the preselected altitude. When the condition is met, the mode transitions from armed to active on its own, and the aircraft's behaviour changes at that moment, whether or not you were watching.

This is the heart of automation management. The system will do exactly what it was told, at exactly the moment its logic decides, using the last values you entered. It has no judgment about whether that is what you actually wanted.

The brains and the muscle

There is a distinction here that clears up a great deal of confusion, and it is worth stating plainly. When you select a mode on the flight control panel, you are not actually commanding the autopilot. You are giving an instruction to the Flight Director.

The Flight Director is the brains. It takes the mode you selected and the values you entered, works out the pitch and bank required to satisfy them, and displays that as command bars on the attitude indicator. The Flight Director holds the plan. The autopilot does not.

That plan can be flown by two kinds of muscle. The first is the human pilot, hand-flying the aircraft to keep the command bars centred. The second is the autopilot, which drives the same result through the servos. Either way, the aircraft goes exactly where the Flight Director is telling it to go. Engaging the autopilot only changes who is moving the controls; it does not change the plan, and it does not change who set it. You did.

This is why the mode you select matters just as much whether you are hand-flying the bars or letting the autopilot fly them, and it is why the scoreboard is worth the same attention in both cases. You are always reading the Flight Director's intentions. The autopilot is only the muscle carrying them out.

There is an uncomfortable corollary to this, and it is worth sitting with. The autopilot will do whatever the Flight Director is asking of it, and the Flight Director will always do exactly what the pilot has asked of it. Garbage in, garbage out. When an aircraft deviates — a busted altitude, a missed crossing restriction, a course that wanders — the reflex is to blame the autopilot. But the automation did precisely what it was told. In effectively every case, the deviation traces back to a lapse on the part of the pilot: in monitoring, in selection, or in mode or data entry. The equipment is rarely the problem. Accepting that is exactly what makes a pilot better at managing it.

The instrument that tells you the truth

The Flight Mode Annunciator, the strip of green and white text across the top of the primary flight display, is the single most important thing to look at when the automation is engaged. Plenty of pilots call it the scoreboard, and the name is a good one: it tells you exactly what the automation is doing, the same way a scoreboard tells you the state of the game at a glance. It shows you the active lateral mode, the active vertical mode, and anything armed to engage next. White is armed. Green is active. When a mode changes, the annunciation changes, and on most systems it boxes or flashes briefly to draw your eye.

Pilots who stay ahead of the automation treat the FMA the way an instrument pilot treats the attitude indicator: they scan it constantly, and they read it out loud. Every time they change a mode or a mode changes on its own, they call it. “Heading mode, altitude hold.” “Approach armed.” “Glidepath captured, vertical nav is out.” Saying it forces you to look, and looking is the entire defence. The events that hurt people are almost never the mode change itself. They are the mode change nobody noticed until the aircraft had already been doing something unexpected for thirty seconds.

Where it goes wrong

A few patterns account for most automation surprises, and all of them are recognizable in advance.

The most common is the mode reversion. You set up a climb in a speed-based vertical mode, and as the aircraft runs out of performance the system quietly reverts to a pitch mode to protect airspeed, or drops the vertical mode entirely. Nothing failed. The automation did precisely what it was designed to do. But if you were not watching the FMA, the first sign is an airspeed or altitude that no longer matches your plan.

Close behind is the altitude preselect that was never set, or was set to the wrong value. Vertical modes that capture an altitude depend entirely on the number in the altitude preselect window. If it still holds your last clearance and you have a new one, the aircraft will level at the wrong altitude with complete confidence. The automation cannot know about a clearance it was never given.

Then there is the approach flown from the wrong energy state. Arm the approach late, or arrive above the glidepath, and the system may never capture vertically, or may capture and then chase a path it cannot fly. A glidepath intercept from above is a classic trap: the needle centres, the mode captures, and the aircraft pitches down aggressively to catch a path it should have met from below. The fix is not more automation. It is arriving at the right altitude, at the right point, with the approach armed in time, so the capture happens the way the designers intended.

The thread running through all of these is the same. The pilot expected one behaviour and the machine delivered another, and the two diverged because the automation was managing the aircraft while the pilot assumed it was managing itself.

Managing the automation, not just using it

The discipline that prevents these events is straightforward to describe and takes real intention to build. It comes down to a habit: select, verify, monitor, anticipate.

Select the mode you want, deliberately, and enter the values it will use. Verify on the FMA that the mode you intended is the mode that is armed or active, and that the target values are correct. Monitor the aircraft's response, because arming a mode is a request, not a result, and the confirmation is the aircraft actually doing the thing. Then anticipate the next transition before it happens, so that when the mode changes from armed to active, you are the one telling the automation what it is about to do, rather than the automation informing you after the fact.

Underneath that habit sits a simple rule that keeps you safe when things get busy: if the automation is doing something you did not expect and you cannot immediately explain, do not try to reprogram your way out of it. Reduce the level of automation. Remember the brains-and-muscle distinction here. Clicking off the autopilot only swaps the muscle back to you; the Flight Director is still giving the commands, so if the plan itself is the problem, that alone will not fix it. When the picture stops making sense, turn the Flight Director off as well and fly the aircraft by hand on raw data while you sort out what the system was doing. The automation is a capable subordinate but a poor supervisor. Taking back control is always available, and it is often the fastest way to end an automation surprise.

For the single-pilot operator, this matters even more. In a two-crew cockpit one pilot can bury their head in the box while the other flies and watches the automation. Alone in a high-performance turboprop, you are doing both jobs, and the programming that pulls your eyes inside the flight deck is exactly the moment the automation is most likely to do something you did not intend. The answer is not to distrust the equipment. It is to stay disciplined about when you program, to keep the FMA in your scan, and to keep enough capacity in reserve that clicking it all off and hand-flying is never a crisis.

The point

Automation is a tool that rewards the pilot who manages it and punishes the pilot who assumes it is managing itself. Mode awareness is the whole game: knowing, at every moment, what the aircraft is doing laterally and vertically, what it is about to do next, and whether that matches what you intended. That knowledge lives on the scoreboard, it is reinforced by saying the modes out loud, and it is protected by a willingness to reduce automation the instant the picture stops making sense.

That is the difference between flying the aircraft and being flown by it.