By Clark Morawetz, Captain Porter Airlines
Happy New Year! 2025 is upon us and many of us take this opportunity to make goals and plans for the year ahead. If you’re like me, those goals and plans include what you will be doing in your life to advance your aviation knowledge, skills, or experience.
For some, it may be continuing work on your latest project or even seeing it through to completion in 2025. For others, it may be planning and executing a lifelong cross-country flying experience (perhaps AirVenture 2025, a trip south, or a guided tour across Canada). For me, I’m looking at what additional training I can receive or perhaps even a checkout on a new (to me) aircraft.
I’d like to take this opportunity to explain why I feel the last one is a great goal if you are struggling to come up with your aviation resolution for 2025.
In my day job, as an airline pilot, one of the items on the job description is to continually keep up to date with the latest revisions to the CARs, and to prepare yourself for simulator training every six months where your type rating is on the line. This forces you to stay in the books and, when your date in the simulator comes, be prepared to demonstrate your abilities to handle critical emergencies in an efficient and safe manner in your aircraft. As a result, I approach any flying I do (whether flying an airliner or flying GA) with the same professionalism and expectations.
How can this translate to you on your flying?
One of my side hustles (part-time gigs) is that I continue to instruct as a freelance instructor on behalf of Cirrus as a factory-trained Cirrus Standardized Instructor Pilot (CSIP). I do this, one because I enjoy it, but also because it gives me the opportunity to share my knowledge and experience with general aviators and hopefully make them safer pilots. In the Cirrus world, it is encouraged to fly with a CSIP every 6-12 months to maintain the skills and knowledge required to operate a Cirrus safely. Is this required to fly the airplane? No, but that’s not the point. The point is, if you want to feel like a professional, you should look at how the pros approach flying and see how you could model your flying after theirs.
So, for this year, if you are struggling to come up with a goal, I humbly suggest seeking out a flight instructor that is familiar with your aircraft, contact them, and arrange a chat to discuss your flying as it is today and where you’d like it to be in the future. Maybe it’s to become more proficient so you can complete your goal or plan for 2025. Maybe it’s just to hang on to the skills or knowledge that you’ve learned in the past and aren’t ready to give up on just yet. Going for a flight with a third party that can look over your shoulder and offer suggestions or advice will be worth the initial cost of the instructor’s fee.
If you do it, you’ll find that it is a worthwhile exercise, and it might even save you some money on that next insurance renewal on your aircraft (some insurers provide discounts for flight reviews).
Whatever your goal is for 2025, I hope that you get to enjoy aviation for all it’s worth this year, in whatever fashion you desire. If yours happens to be to get a flight review, give me a call.