This year I've spent a ton of time training. First my Commercial certificate, then my CFI. I think I've made two flights all year just to go flying. I've gotten a little burned out, to the point that I dove (no pun intended) exclusively back into scuba diving for the last couple of weeks. But today I had to get in my mandatory hour for the month.
My flying club charges you for one hour of flying per month whether you fly or not. This has the effect of giving people the incentive to fly regularly, theoretically keeping current. My problem is that I've been working on my CFI certificate, so I've been flying Pro Aero's Arrow. The CFI checkride must include time in a complex aircraft. (Although I think it's easier to do the whole thing in one plane, some people prefer to do only do the complex part in a complex aircraft and the rest in a fixed gear aircraft that they may be more familiar with.) Since the all of the club aircraft are fixed gear, I needed to rent the Arrow. Just to make things easier on myself, I didn't fly anything else this month. The result is that here it is the end of the month and I haven't flown any of the club planes.
So I decided to take up one of the 172's for a spin. No purpose (other than getting my hour in). I just took off and started flying. I ended up near Oxford, so I did a few touch and go's, but that was it. I just enjoyed the act of flying. It's been a long time since I've done that. Usually I at least have a destination in mind, fly there, have a coke, and fly back, but today, it was just about the flying. And flying a 172 instead of the Arrow and Saratoga (the only other planes I've flown in two months) was a big change. It feels like you're forgetting something: no prop lever, no gear. And since the one I flew was fuel injected, there isn't even carb heat. Not to mention I'm used to approach speeds of 75 to 80 knots instead of 60.
I need to get back to flying at least once a week just to fly. Maybe next week I'll see if we can start up airport night again.
