I’ve always said that flying is one of the easiest things in the world not to do. For those of us who fly purely recreationally — no matter how deeply we love it, or how central it is to who we are — we inevitably go through dry spells. If either or both of those two vital resources — time and money — are tight, flying becomes a little harder to justify and a lot easier to sacrifice. Toss in a harsh winter and suddenly “I haven’t flown in a week or so” turns into “I’m not even current!”
Whatever the reason, when you’ve been away from it for a little while, getting back in the left seat (or front or back) takes a little bit of patience and planning. Some of it might be a little harder than you expect, but overall, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly it all comes back.
If you’re lucky, your return to flight will coincide with the need for a flight review, so you’ll be sure to fly with an instructor before trying to blow the dust off yourself. If you’re smart, you’ll fly with an instructor anyway. It might be legal not to, but given the choice, safe is better than legal — every single time.
Only your experience will tell you where you’ll struggle, but in my experience, it tends to be the little things that you can’t possibly believe you’d miss until just after you do. Pulling the carb heat on late on downwind, fumbling the readback of a taxi clearance, taxiing with flaps down, that sort of thing. Nothing catastrophic, just enough rookie mistakes to remind you to pay attention, and to give you some things to think about as you mentally debrief the flight.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that things like instinct and muscle memory work together to help you blow the rust off, and 95 percent of what you need to know is there waiting. In other words, you might taxi a couple of feet with the parking brake on because you missed it on the checklist, but you’re not going to find yourself panicking on short final because you forgot how to land.
Once you’re current again, you’ll laugh quietly at the small mistakes and celebrate the lack of any big ones as you wonder just why it is that you waited so long. Flying is easy not to do, but it’s always — always — easier to get back into than you think it will be.
If you really want to go deeper on this topic, listen to the “Returning to Flight” episode of The Green Dot podcast we recorded with local CFI and EAA Sport Aviation magazine columnist Steve Krog.
If it’s not you but your airplane that’s been on the ground too long, check out “Haven’t Flown in a While?” Lisa Turner’s Airworthy column in the November 2018 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.