It's amazing how quickly flying skills degrade. I've got like 200 hours now, but when I was at about 150 I didn't fly for like a month, then got back up for some pattern work and was completely out of whack -- sensations felt foreign, was anxious about landing.. etc..
I love that at least in the US, you can drop it for a while and just get a new flight review and pick it back up -- it's a lifetime cert. The medical certification on the other hand.... that can ground you.
There are a number of licences nowadays. Yours is probably GA. Which I used to have. The licence is forever and if you haven't done X number of take offs and landings in the last 90 days you need to have a check flight with an instructor.
I converted to an ultralight licence. I think internationally it might be called 'light sports '. Only small differences around the world. For instance in Australia you are allowed constant speed propellers, but not in the US.
With this licence you only need a biannual flight review. This is where it all fell apart for me. I hadn't flown for about five weeks when my instructor died. I was getting rusty. I was going to fly with him the following week. Then I got depressed about it and didn't fly for another six months. I went to a different airfield because after my instructors crash the school closed down. Different airfield, TOTALLY different aircraft, different instructor of course. And because of new noise abatement rules at that airfield, really tight right hand circuits. I did two flights and felt like I'd never flown before! That left me even more depressed.
Then finally my plane was finished and ready for test flying. My BFR was due and in essence I hadn't flown for a year. I found a different school, with better aircraft, and a less ---smurfy--- airfield. Why I didn't pick that first I don't know. I did six flights with this guy. I barely scraped through. He passed me and I should have been happy, but it was hollow because I was struggling with something I should have breezed through.
BUT GOOD NEWS!
I finally went for a flight with the mechanic in my plane again, and it's going to be fine. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to log hours on my plane while flying with the test pilot. He said you can, and he will recommend putting me on the test schedule. So hopefully within a few weeks I will be able to fly on my own, in my own airplane ☺️
Yesterdays flight was good. I did all the flying. Pretty much touch and goes, bearing in mind other than the previous two brief flights with him where I was in the passenger seat, I hadn't flown a tail dragger for about five years! Last landing got messy though, because he pointed out the head temperature gauge had climbed rapidly and we should get down as soon as possible. So that put a bit of a panic into the situation. Afterwards I found the sensor wire was intermittently grounding. Which I've fixed. A good lesson to learn with an expert next to me. ALWAYS fly the plane! It'll still fly if the engine stops.
So I think the emotional rollercoaster has finally stopped and I'm looking forward to getting the 25 hours test flight period out of the way 🙂
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Topic: So I've been building an ultralight (Read 65655 times)
