Flying again after 24 years

[Rustic23]

interesting comments about IFR training. I gave this advice to a friend. Get your IFR ticket and the never plan a trip where you have to use it! Cracking a 100 and a quarter mile vis under the hood is one thing. Planning on doing it in a single engine aircraft, IMHO is just plain stupid! Never flew the all glass cockpit so maybe that has changed things, but have lots of time in the weather landing in Germany and other places and IFR minimum are not fun!

[Souschef]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter I have had friends try and then decide that Angel Flight didn't work very well with small singles. Between hauling capacity and limited ability to deal with weather they just had to decline too many flights. In the northern US, at least, a FIKI twin is probably the ticket. Turbo if you are in mountainous areas. YMMV, again.

I did 20 Angel Flights last year in a Cessna 172 Admittedly the SoCal weather is better than the Northeast. All I do is look down the list of open flights on the website, look at how far the flight is, and what the passenger weight is. Then I make my selection of flights I want. The planes I fly have a Garmin 430 GPS, which is very easy to program, once I learned how. In fact, my copilot, who does not have a license, does the programming.
So far this year I have done 10 Angel flights, and 3 Pilots & Paws flights.

[OldShooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustic23 ... I gave this advice to a friend. Get your IFR ticket and the never plan a trip where you have to use it! ...

Then how is he proficient when he most needs to be? My approach has been to never plan a trip where there is a serious risk of minimums at the other end and to never launch when the WX is below minimums at my departure airport. Between shooting practice approaches to minimums, periodic flying in IMC and better-than-minimums destinations I end up with a proficiency level that is comfortable for me. I also actively seek out IMC days for practice approaches/currency maintenance.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter This discussion has been quite interesting to me, even though I'm a non-flyer.

+1

And 80% of the acronyms/initials and terms are Greek to me. But it's often exciting just to hear people talk about something they are passionate about, even if the subject is sort of a passing interest to me.

Though I've been goofing with some catapult gliders, had some fun with micro-quad-copters the past year, played with rubber-band powered flight, and am looking into building an electric RC slow-flyer. Pretty tame compared to flying some real metal! But I'll have some fun with it.

-ERD50

[Rustic23]

Oldshooter, surly you don't wait for airports to be at minimum to practice your approaches? I did not say never practice, or never use it. I said if the weather at your destination is a 100 and 1/4 and plan to go another day! I stand by that. Remember, we are talking about people that think they are current because they have three landings every 90 days. People that are flying not for profit, where a trip on Monday is just as good on Tuesday or next week. Just because you can does not mean it smart to do.

Also, I don't expect people to take that advice all the time. example John Kennedy.

[OldShooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustic23 Oldshooter, surly you don't wait for airports to be at minimum to practice your approaches?

Of course not, but when I was flying a lot I made a point of trying to do currency flying in real IMC wherever possible. I also had a personal rule to maintain currency on a 3-month basis rather than the FAA's 6 months.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustic23 I did not say never practice, or never use it. I said if the weather at your destination is a 100 and 1/4 and plan to go another day! I stand by that.

"Get your IFR ticket and the never plan a trip where you have to use it!" is what you said. I didn't read all that other stuff into the statement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustic23 Remember, we are talking about people that think they are current because they have three landings every 90 days.

I didn't know we were, actually. I have no control over idiots and little interest in worrying about them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustic23 People that are flying not for profit, where a trip on Monday is just as good on Tuesday or next week. Just because you can does not mean it smart to do.

Well, sometimes they are guys who have serious gethomeitis when they're at Grandma's on Sunday afternoon and have to be at work on Monday. Unfortunately, those are also the guys who showed up on Saturday morning and did their three landings while the family waited on the ground.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustic23 Also, I don't expect people to take that advice all the time. example John Kennedy.

So much screwed up about that deal I wouldn't even know where to start. At the bottom, probably a serious personality disorder.

[Koolau]

It's been almost 50 years now since I was PIC. I still miss it, but I'm sure I'd never pass a 3rd class medical. Still thinking about looking for a pilot who's "pushing the stick around" getting hours for his/her next ticket. I'd happily pay expenses just to get back into the air for a while. Really don't care for commercial flying for all the reasons we've discussed here before. YMMV

[cbo111]

Quote:

Originally Posted by davismills IFR only instructor training appeals greatly to me. Loved teaching instruments in the past. I've always liked teaching and taught platform, simulator and flight navigator training at Mather AFB, CA back in the late eighties. I hated night and day celestial, but if you gave me a sextant, I could probably pull it off. I think!

I trained at Mather in 83, muddled through celestial and was "semi-proficient." At assignment night I got orders to Yokota AB, Japan. I soon found myself using celestial to navigate all over the Pacific and got pretty good at it. No GPS back in those days.

[Souschef]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koolau It's been almost 50 years now since I was PIC. I still miss it, but I'm sure I'd never pass a 3rd class medical. Still thinking about looking for a pilot who's "pushing the stick around" getting hours for his/her next ticket. I'd happily pay expenses just to get back into the air for a while. Really don't care for commercial flying for all the reasons we've discussed here before. YMMV

i fly for Angel Flight. My copilot has Parkinson's in remission, but can fly the plane. I take it off and land it, he does the rest, including programming the GPS. I am more than happy to pay for the flight.

[OldShooter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koolau It's been almost 50 years now since I was PIC. I still miss it, but I'm sure I'd never pass a 3rd class medical. Still thinking about looking for a pilot who's "pushing the stick around" getting hours for his/her next ticket. I'd happily pay expenses just to get back into the air for a while. Really don't care for commercial flying for all the reasons we've discussed here before. YMMV

A couple of things:

1. You can fly with an instructor even with no medical. You'll have to do some of that anyway, so why not?

2. There is a new thing called "Basic Med" where your own physician can sign you off for what is basically a 3rd class medical. The questionnaire that he/she fills out is available on line, so you can see if you're good to go or not. Basic Med is IIRC not available if you have ever failed an FAA medical but it is available even if you were on a special issuance.

[Pilot2013]

I agree about IFR. While I enjoy "using IFR" for many reasons, because it is a very rare event to fly actual IMC, I would not do it without and instructor in the right seat.

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter A couple of things: 1. You can fly with an instructor even with no medical. You'll have to do some of that anyway, so why not? 2. There is a new thing called "Basic Med" where your own physician can sign you off for what is basically a 3rd class medical. The questionnaire that he/she fills out is available on line, so you can see if you're good to go or not. Basic Med is IIRC not available if you have ever failed an FAA medical but it is available even if you were on a special issuance.

1) Yes, I was aware I could go get some dual, but I just didn't want to pay for an instructor. Just a ride along would satisfy my jones at this point.

2) Thanks for the info. If I ever do consider getting current, I'll look into this. Even when I was a "kid", I almost couldn't get the 3rd class due to a mummer. Took a whole bunch of extra testing and docs to get past the initial issue. Now of days, of course, with echo visualization, they know exactly what makes the extra noise. Back in the day, it was some "expert" guessing (wrong, as it turns out) what was the issue.

Thanks again.

[check6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter Everyone is different I guess. I believe and I tell people that it's not like riding a bike.

Sorry OldShooter, I should have qualified that statement. "With over 15K hours it is almost like riding a bike."

[CH47]

Ok - I know this is a necropost and on top of that my first post, but I’ve been lurking here for a while. Maybe one day soon I’ll do the “I am”thing

I am still w*rking but getting close and have thought about the whole flying thing a lot. I am a former Army helicopter pilot and IP. Took 25 years off from flying after I separated from the Army and missed it every day. About 4 years ago I told the DW that I was going to start flying. again, and surprisingly it was ok. You have to understand that there are about 4 things on earth that I truly love. My wife, my daughter, my dogs, and flying. That about covers it.

So, I started flying sailplanes at The Soaring Club of Houston. Immediately fell for it. Nothing like flying for 6 hours from a 2000 feet tow. Total cost for the day (and this is after I got my Glider ratings), about $100. That’s something I can live with. If you’ve never tried soaring and there is a quality operation nearby, I highly recommend it.

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CH47 If you’ve never tried soaring and there is a quality operation nearby, I highly recommend it.

Welcome to the forum!
I agree it must be fantastic for you. Reminds me of a good story.

I had a friend who used to do a lot of that at the Black Forest site near Colorado Springs. This was back in the 70s, and he was really avid. In fact, he set a world altitude record one day and was just over the moon about it.

Two things happened on that flight:

First, his oxygen mask heater crapped out, so most of the flight was:

• Breathe a little while
• Remove the mask and shake the ice crystals out of it
• Repeat

The second thing that happened was a Japanese guy broke his record by a small amount the next day. Since it was less than 24 hours later, my friend never got his name in the record books.

[check6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CH47 Took 25 years off from flying after I separated from the Army and missed it every day.

Welcome to the forum and back to flying. There are quite a few pilots here. Once you start flying it never leaves your blood.

George Bush flew fighters for a couple of years then quit and I believe he never flew again. Never understood that.

[HadEnuff]

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Originally Posted by check6 Welcome to the forum and back to flying. There are quite a few pilots here. Once you start flying it never leaves your blood. George Bush flew fighters for a couple of years then quit and I believe he never flew again. Never understood that.

Being shot down over the Pacific may have soured him on it.

[ArcticMike]

With good panel-mounted GPS navigators and an iPad (I use Foreflight backed up by an old Aircharts book) I fell more comfortable flying light IFR now than I did when I was younger. There's a learning curve but more capability than a few years ago.

I like the idea of flying VFR with the instrument capability as a backup -

[swoop]

Got my PPL in 2011 at age 55. My father was in the Air Force and somewhere along the way I got the bug. I remember as a kid going into an airplane in display, saw all the buttons and switches and knew I wanted to be the guy to push those buttons and switches. Never flew small planes as a kid but literally thought about it my entire life. Didn’t know anyone that did at the time. One day, when I had the money, the time and the determination I took my first lesson and felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. Over the years I haven’t flown a lot but keep going back periodically and getting current. Plan on going back next week to get current again after about a year layoff for various reasons. Rarely does a day pass where I don’t think about flying or something happens to make me think about flying. I’m hooked for life!

[NanoSour]

For those fellow ER folk with the flying bug, may I suggest flight simming as a very low cost alternative. Home PC flight sims have come a long way since the 80s and X-Plane will provide you with hours and hours of flight enjoyment. The great news is you can fly any equipment to anywhere in the world.

Check out some of the more recent youtube videos of X-Plane to get an idea of what it is capable of.