I followed a similar arc, absent the turbines and the pay. I have given parts of my story in other threads. I had a 34-year absence from flying. Having flown actively for about 13-14 years, with multi-year gaps as I was out of the country, I did acquire a CPL with instrument and glider ratings. Stuff happened, and I stopped flying-suddenly. 18 months ago, I was finally able to get myself back into the air, albeit under the Light Sport label. What utterly surprised me was how quickly the muscle memory of flying came back. I had also retained much of the essence of VOR navigation. I was immediately comfortable in the cockpit. One caveat: I certainly was not comfortable with the all-glass panels in a couple of demo flights in LS aircraft that I tried; it required (for me) a totally different mental effort in interpreting what I was seeing on the panel. I quickly discovered that I had lost some of whatever cockpit management skills I may have once had. I had forgotten how hard it is to fold and re-fold a sectional while trying to stay aloft in a nominally competent manner. Within an hour of my 1st cross-country (flying back to my home base), I tossed the sectionals aside and gave primary attention to a tablet and EFB app that I had just started carrying 3 days earlier.
At first, I was concerned about all the new regulations, especially airspace issues. It took some studying to finally realize that the much of the core was the same, just with different nomenclature and with a tad more complexity. The old TCA is now Class Bravo with a lot more sectors, the Airport Traffic area is now Class C or D air space, with slightly different regs. What used to be the wide open skies is now designated as Class E or G. Oh, yeah, there's Class A, but I don't worry about that as I will never be there. Some of the communications phraseology has changed: When I hear, "Line up and wait", I have to be careful to not reply, "Roger, Wilco, position and hold, over and out".
Initially, on my landings, I was flaring out way too high and dropping the plane in with quite a bounce. But the CFI helped me work through the process, and I am doing much better- most of the time. I do maintain a concern about the dichotomy of how I think I used to perform the various aspects of aviating- like holding heading at +/- .2 degrees, altitude at */- 2 feet, and airspeed at +/- .5 knots and my current capabilities. I now seem to be somewhat looser on my specs.Or maybe it's an entirely false menmory.
Someone mentioned the AOPA Rusty Pilots seminars that are held throughout the country. They won't fully answer every question that you may have, but it is a good start, and you would be attending with a lot of other pilots in your same or similar situation.The nice thing is that the seminar counts as the ground portion of your BFR, sorry FR. For me, attending a seminar (actually 2) served as the catalyst to take the actual step of arranging for a lesson to see where I stood after so many years
The real point of this is: If I did it, you can do it. You will probably find that the basic flying skills come back very quickly.
Hope this helps in your quest. Good luck.
