To fly again !!

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Kyra

Filing Flight Plan
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Jun 18, 2018
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Kdray
Hi folks,
Hope y’all are doing great.
34 year old cpl holder here, working on gaining FR & IPC. Last flight i did was in 2011 and TT IS 270 hours. Yes , many many moons ago. Looking for some advice from more experienced seniors on where to start. Please share your own experiences as well.

Thank you
 
There’s no substitute for just getting out there and going flying. Have fun!!!
 
Welcome , have to join the group,get out there and fly.
 
frfly172 said:
Welcome , have to join the group,get out there and fly.
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Yes sir. Have a flight scheduled next month. Hopefully, all the ground studies review will be done by then. I’m sure i’ll be sweating buckets that flight.
 
It will all come back ,I did it after taking off 20 years. Remember flying is supposed to be fun.
 
Kyra said:
Yes sir. Have a flight scheduled next month. Hopefully, all the ground studies review will be done by then. I’m sure i’ll be sweating buckets that flight.
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Is it wth a CFI? If so, relax and tell him/her what you want. Type of flying you do, how long since you've flown, basically your flying history. The CFI should tailor the training for you then, and it may take more than one or two flights. I have a guy Sat who hasn't flown since 2008 and we've talked about it. He knows it might take more than a one hour flight. I told him he could do the training/FR in a plane he hasn't flown before and then he'd be checked out for that plane too.
 
mscard88 said:
Is it wth a CFI? If so, relax and tell him/her what you want. Type of flying you do, how long since you've flown, basically your flying history. The CFI should tailor the training for you then, and it may take more than one or two flights. I have a guy Sat who hasn't flown since 2008 and we've talked about it. He knows it might take more than a one hour flight. I told him he could do the training/FR in a plane he hasn't flown before and then he'd be checked out for that plane too.
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Yes, the flights with a a very experienced CFI. She seemed great. I’m thinking at least, an hour for every year that I didn’t fly. Of course I understand it could be more to gain skill again. But she said minimum 5 to 10 hours. Guess i’ll find out.
 
I friend of mine got back into the cockpit yesterday, after about a 20 year break.
After his lesson, he called me and said "I suck! I suck! I suck!"
...before saying "That was SO MUCH FUN!"
 
kath said:
I friend of mine got back into the cockpit yesterday, after about a 20 year break.
After his lesson, he called me and said "I suck! I suck! I suck!"
...before saying "That was SO MUCH FUN!"
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Lol !! Oh i know i’m gonna suck... but you’ve no idea how much i’m looking forward to it.
 
25 years out here, back last October, having a blast, working on IR.
 
Kyra said:
Yes, the flights with a a very experienced CFI. She seemed great. I’m thinking at least, an hour for every year that I didn’t fly. Of course I understand it could be more to gain skill again. But she said minimum 5 to 10 hours. Guess i’ll find out.
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I can see that for what you're doing, a FR and an IPC
 
Was off for 20+ years. Took 7 hours to get the sign off out of the way. Essentially did a mini-private pilot prep. At the start all the stuff I did automatically when I first learned to fly I had to think about. It was about flight number 3 before things started to just click again after that it was smooth sailing.
 
DFH65 said:
Was off for 20+ years. Took 7 hours to get the sign off out of the way. Essentially did a mini-private pilot prep. At the start all the stuff I did automatically when I first learned to fly I had to think about. It was about flight number 3 before things started to just click again after that it was smooth sailing.[/QUOTE

Thank you for sharing your experience. 20 years is a long time. I would be so thrilled if i got it all together in flight # 3. I’ll keep it posted on here. Maybe this experience can help another fellow pilot.
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I got my PPL at 17 years of age back in 1981 and flew for a few years through college and right after graduation. Got married, had kids, and started a business - and got poor real quick. To make a long story short, got my medical back last June and found a great CFI who got me current again (October 2017) and went on and got my IR this past May. So....after a 35 year "sabbatical" I not only got my PPL back current, I went ahead and added the IR to it as well. Also bought two airplanes.

At 55 years old, I have jumped in with both feet. I did have a great CFI to get me going again, but in reality it was not near as big of a deal to get back to flying as what I thought it would be. I will say this - navigation is sure a whole lot easier than it used to be!

Do it!
 
Stephen Shore said:
I got my PPL at 17 years of age back in 1981 and flew for a few years through college and right after graduation. Got married, had kids, and started a business - and got poor real quick. To make a long story short, got my medical back last June and found a great CFI who got me current again (October 2017) and went on and got my IR this past May. So....after a 35 year "sabbatical" I not only got my PPL back current, I went ahead and added the IR to it as well. Also bought two airplanes.

At 55 years old, I have jumped in with both feet. I did have a great CFI to get me going again, but in reality it was not near as big of a deal to get back to flying as what I thought it would be. I will say this - navigation is sure a whole lot easier than it used to be!

Do it!
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Wow !! Thank you for sharing your experience. 35 years is a long long time. Congratulations to you.
I agree with you on navigation being easier now. I didn’t go to a fancy school, so none of the planes we flew on had GPS.
 
Kyra said:
Wow !! Thank you for sharing your experience. 35 years is a long long time. Congratulations to you.
I agree with you on navigation being easier now. I didn’t go to a fancy school, so none of the planes we flew on had GPS.
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For your IPC you’ll have to decide whether to do it with GPS or not. GPS hadn’t even been invented when I got an IR or the last time I had used it. The CFI recommended I just do the IPC without it and get caught up with GPS later. I chose to learn GPS first and then do the IPC. While GPS does all kinds of amazing things it requires actions from the pilot to make them happen. You will get a new appreciation for ‘task management.’
 
luvflyin said:
For your IPC you’ll have to decide whether to do it with GPS or not. GPS hadn’t even been invented when I got an IR or the last time I had used it. The CFI recommended I just do the IPC without it and get caught up with GPS later. I chose to learn GPS first and then do the IPC. While GPS does all kinds of amazing things it requires actions from the pilot to make them happen. You will get a new appreciation for ‘task management.’
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I definitely agree with the above. Probably when saying you have "GPS", that most likely means a Garmin 430W - they seem to be in almost every panel now (including mine). Those are great units, but when flying single pilot IFR in actual IMC in Class B airspace with no AP, and you get to load a STAR as you are descending from your previous clearance, those units can be a handful. Loading fixes in your FP in a 430 as you are coming into a busy Class B airport in IMC literally had me wondering why I wanted to go back and get my PPL much less my Instrument certification.

I am much more comfortable now doing this, but it might have been easier starting off without all the "user friendly" technology. Funny, I still flightplan on airways so that I have VOR NAV radios as backup to my GPS, although I have never had a hint of trouble from the 430W mounted in my panel. I have both VOR's with the current radial "dialed in" on every leg of every trip.

I am truly 55 years old.
 
Stephen Shore said:
I definitely agree with the above. Probably when saying you have "GPS", that most likely means a Garmin 430W - they seem to be in almost every panel now (including mine). Those are great units, but when flying single pilot IFR in actual IMC in Class B airspace with no AP, and you get to load a STAR as you are descending from your previous clearance, those units can be a handful. Loading fixes in your FP in a 430 as you are coming into a busy Class B airport in IMC literally had me wondering why I wanted to go back and get my PPL much less my Instrument certification.

I am much more comfortable now doing this, but it might have been easier starting off without all the "user friendly" technology. Funny, I still flightplan on airways so that I have VOR NAV radios as backup to my GPS, although I have never had a hint of trouble from the 430W mounted in my panel. I have both VOR's with the current radial "dialed in" on every leg of every trip.

I am truly 55 years old.
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Yeah. I was convinced that GPS was invented just to increase Autopilot sales. lol
 
A lot of great advice here from some highly experienced and knowledgeable pilots/CFIs. The important thing in my humble opinion as a mere private pilot is to get the first flight under your belt. That will help to knock off some rust and identify the areas that you are weakest in. Then the CFI and you can put together a plan to get back to where you were before. I’m sure that you would like to regain the proficiency you had when you passed your CP Checkride and not just knock out a flight or two to be considered “safe enough”. I’d also recommend some ground time to refresh your memory, cover any changes to the regs, and of course meet the requirements of a flight review.

I’m in the same category of some of the posters above in that I stopped flying for 29 years before picking it back up again. The important thing was that I took that first flight after all those years. I’m glad I did. I’m sure you will be as well.

Good luck.
 
Thank you folks !! My confidence is a notch higher than yesterday after reading y’alls experiences and advice. Looking forward to that first flight next month, after 7 years.
 
Yes, as they say, just go and sit in an airplane and fly :) :) :)
Ok, my situation is total different, I am a student, and I skipped 1 year.... just sat back in the cockpit, afraid I ve forgotten everything and after a couple of minutes almast everything coame back, I remembered (or my muscles remembered I dont know)... but was actually nothing to be afraid of.

They say its like riding a bike... something you never can forget.

Kyra said:
Hi folks,
Hope y’all are doing great.
34 year old cpl holder here, working on gaining FR & IPC. Last flight i did was in 2011 and TT IS 270 hours. Yes , many many moons ago. Looking for some advice from more experienced seniors on where to start. Please share your own experiences as well.

Thank you
Click to expand...
 
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