Getting back into currency - refresher training?

overdrive148

overdrive148

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overdrive148
Hey guys. Looks like I'm about to be able to get back in the saddle once more sometime soon here. I'm pleased to announce I just got my third class back and I'm looking for what I need to get back up and some suggestions.

IIRC, I will need to pass a CFI semi-checkride and do the 3 takeoffs and landings. I'm not terribly out of it, but what would you guys recommend for getting back into the plane? From what I've heard, it's like a bicycle to get back into the swing of it, and I've only been out for ~6 years. 95 hours total.
 
You will need a flight review with a ground portion and flying portion. Read some free FAA publications like the Airplane Flying Handbook and Pilot's Handbook of Aeronuatical Knowledge, and meet with a CFI
 
From what I read it takes 1 hour CFI dual per year you haven't been flying to be current again. It really depends on the individual. I stopped flying for 10 years and it took me 11 dual and 1 hour ground to be signed off.
 
Get the 2014 far/aim book and refresh. Read over the PTS standards and read the poh manual for wha ever aircraft you will be training. Watch YouTube videos on flight manuvers
. That is what did. Also listen to livestc a lot
 
Go to the local FBO/Flight school and tell them you need a Flight Review, that will get the process started. How long it takes depends on how 'out of it' you are. Minimum will be 2 hrs, one ground, one in the air, given your stats figure 2-3 sessions with 4-6 hrs of flying and you'll be 'back in it' and comfortable.

You can shorten up the ground time by reading through the FARs and AIM, but I find it more effective to just have the instructor go over the changes.
 
Did it after being gone more than 5 hours. Did a take home test from the CFI ,also aircraft specific test from flight school. An hour of ground on aim and airspace. Did 3hours of fun flying with instructor. Good to go and continue to learn.
 
I did the same after about 13 years.....trust me, you will be back in the saddle rather quickly. You just need to knock the dust off and get comfortable in the left seat again.

I must warn you though, you will soon have the desire to buy a plane though, so just prepare yourself and your check book!
 
It takes a minimum of an hour in the air and and hour on the ground with a flight instructor for a (biennial) Flight Review. As long as your medical is current, that's all you need. The three TO/Landings are required to carry passengers. You can go solo all you want without them (you'll no doubt get three landings in as a part of your review, but don't forget that passenger currency differentiates between day and night).

There's a ten year hole in my log book where I stopped flying. I did as was suggested....grab an FAR and AIM and my old Private Pilot text and reviewed. Went into the flight school and grabbed an instructor. We did about three lessons (about an hour in the air each time) before the two of us felt comfortable again. It was fun. I was new to the area so we did some XC work to also famiarize myself with the area.
 
evapilotaz said:
From what I read it takes 1 hour CFI dual per year you haven't been flying to be current again. It really depends on the individual. I stopped flying for 10 years and it took me 11 dual and 1 hour ground to be signed off.
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Sound about right.
 
Much appreciated guys. I kind of figured that it'd just be read up a bit, do some ground, then get in the plane and get back into using those muscle memory skills. I just didn't want to show up to a school and say "I want to refresh on everything everywhere" because that would be asking to be taken for a ride.
 
overdrive148 said:
Much appreciated guys. I kind of figured that it'd just be read up a bit, do some ground, then get in the plane and get back into using those muscle memory skills. I just didn't want to show up to a school and say "I want to refresh on everything everywhere" because that would be asking to be taken for a ride.
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I recently flew with a guy who'd been out of it 40 years. Took about three hours of ground and five hours in the air to have him back up to speed. He's been flying weekly since and having a ball taking friends and family for $100 hamburgers!
 
LDJones said:
I recently flew with a guy who'd been out of it 40 years. Took about three hours of ground and five hours in the air to have him back up to speed. He's been flying weekly since and having a ball taking friends and family for $100 hamburgers!
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40 years? Wow :eek:
Unit74 said:
I must warn you though, you will soon have the desire to buy a plane though, so just prepare yourself and your check book!
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There's a checkbook? Why didn't anyone tell me :rofl:
 
evapilotaz said:
From what I read it takes 1 hour CFI dual per year you haven't been flying to be current again. It really depends on the individual. I stopped flying for 10 years and it took me 11 dual and 1 hour ground to be signed off.
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Not sure were you got that info David, I hadn't flown for 17 years and all it took was a couple hours on the ground getting caught up with the reg changes post 911 and about 1.3 in the air doing a normal BFR.

I had also done my homework ahead of time with a new FAR/AIM and the refresher course AOPA offered.
 
tmyers said:
Not sure were you got that info David, I hadn't flown for 17 years and all it took was a couple hours on the ground getting caught up with the reg changes post 911 and about 1.3 in the air doing a normal BFR.

I had also done my homework ahead of time with a new FAR/AIM and the refresher course AOPA offered.
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How many hours did you have before you quit, out of curiosity? And did you just thumb through the FAR/AIM or did you go through and read it completely? I feel like I'm kind of rusty looking at charts and remembering VOR's and what to look for during run-ups, but I do have the general idea down pat enough in my head to know what to look for I believe.

Also was the refresher course for AOPA one of their free ones online or was it one offered like a paid seminar?
 
when I hung it up I had around 400 hrs and had my instrument.

I spent most of my time reading up on the different classes of airspace as I knew that was where most of the changes had occurred. The AOPA course (free) also helped a lot with that.

When I quit there was no such thing as GPS. I was using a state of the art Apollo 618 Loran unit.

Ended up taking the flying portion in a 172R with a GNS-530. It was a very gusty early evening when we departed and at about 50' AGL I asked myself if I had lost my mind. Once past that initial reaction it all came back very well including some 12 to 14 knot crosswind landings.
 
Tim applaud you for your short amount of time getting current again. I had just under 100 hrs when is stopped flying. It took me 11 hrs for me to be current again. Slow learner perhaps but I was still very low hour pilot when I quit.
 
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tmyers said:
Not sure were you got that info David, I hadn't flown for 17 years and all it took was a couple hours on the ground getting caught up with the reg changes post 911 and about 1.3 in the air doing a normal BFR.

I had also done my homework ahead of time with a new FAR/AIM and the refresher course AOPA offered.
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It really has a lot to do with how much time you had when you stopped, I bet you had over 300hrs.

Edit: Doh, should have kept reading, but I was right. There is a reason that the Commercial Cert requires 250hrs, there is a point in there where everything settles into your brain and muscle memory. The IR also helps because it's pretty intense and forces that 'deep storage' effect of the basics a bit earlier to make space for another level of observation, interpretation, and comprehension. Your brain needs to clear the 'RAM Cache' so it sticks everything 'on the disc'.
 
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I was out of aviation for about 30 years and had a 150 hours.

Recently returned to aviation. Has taken about 15 hours to get signed off.

When I last was flying regularly, GPS had not been invented, LORAN was becoming more popular, and the area I was flying in was not nearly as complex as the airspace in SoCal.

I still want a few more hours with my CFI to work on a few things, but for the most part I am pretty comfortable.
 
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You can also get an additional rating in lieu of a flight review. So if you've ever wanted to get another rating, now might be a good time.
 
RalphInCA said:
I was out of aviation for about 30 years and had a 150 hours.

Recently returned to aviation. Has taken about 15 hours to get signed off.

When I last was flying regularly, GPS had not been invented, LORAN was becoming more popular, and the area I was flying in was not nearly as complex as the airspace in SoCal.

I still want a few more hours with my CFI to work on a few things, but for the most part I am pretty comfortable.
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Sounds normal. I will say one thing for learning to fly in SoCal, you never worry about 'airspace' because you deal with as complicated of airspace as it gets from day one. The only place a bit more complex and less forgiving is around DC, but it still gets handled exactly the same, so no biggie.
 
What is consider normal anyway. Everyone is different. I wished I didn't stop flying when I did. Life events put flying on the back burner.
 
David, no slam intended against you, I thought you were quoting a source that was advocating a mandatory time to get current, and didn't know where you had seen that.

I was very fortunate in that almost all of my flying was XC time and my training went quickly as well. Once I got past the initial problem of landing to fast the rest of my training went very quickly.

Everyone learns at their own pace but I have to tell on myself.The first flight after getting checked out, I flew for about 15 minutes trying to remember how to change the frequency on the 530. I felt like an idiot, LOL.
 
Henning said:
It really has a lot to do with how much time you had when you stopped, I bet you had over 300hrs.



Edit: Doh, should have kept reading, but I was right. There is a reason that the Commercial Cert requires 250hrs, there is a point in there where everything settles into your brain and muscle memory. The IR also helps because it's pretty intense and forces that 'deep storage' effect of the basics a bit earlier to make space for another level of observation, interpretation, and comprehension. Your brain needs to clear the 'RAM Cache' so it sticks everything 'on the disc'.
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I stopped flying around 1995 with 500 hours. Started back up a 2 years ago and it took just a couple flights to get current enough to be signed off. Biggest challenge? Learning the Garmin 430. Not even close to figuring that thing out. Give me my needle and I'm good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Tim it's all good . I Felt like a total noob when I started flying again. I was very discourage with myself. I still haven't flown with passengers because I feel I'm still gaining my confidence with flying.
 
Swampfox201 said:
I stopped flying around 1995 with 500 hours. Started back up a 2 years ago and it took just a couple flights to get current enough to be signed off. Biggest challenge? Learning the Garmin 430. Not even close to figuring that thing out. Give me my needle and I'm good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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It took me about 40hrs before I quit calling the 430 an asinine mother ****ing piece of **** and cursing whomever designed such a **** poor user interface and architecture every time I had my hand on it. It's only every third time these days.
 
20+ years out. I had 110 or so hours when I quit. Took just about 8 until I was signed off. Still admittedly knocking off some of the rust.

What I have noticed is that a lot of the things the I "just did" before I have to think about now. I am sure over time these things will become second nature again.
 
I just went up this past Sunday for the first time in 21 years. When I stopped flying, I had 238 hrs mostly in a Warrior with some limited time in an Arrow also. To prepare for flying again, I took the entire private pilot online ground school offered by Gleim. Glad I did because I forgot a lot, lol, although it did come back pretty quick, and I learned all the new airspace rules that I hadn't realized had changed so much since I've been away. I also bought XPlane just to get the scan working again and I was really impressed with the visual. Actually think it helped me get prepared for landing again. Youtube was also very helpful watching preflight checks and takeoff/landing video.

Was going to start back in the Arrow since the school doesn't have a Warrior but my CFI steered me to a 172M with a modified 180hp engine, GPS and autopilot. Told me the performance was actually better in some respects then the Arrow and it would be easier for me to come back in a non complex aircraft. Although I consider myself a low wing guy, this was a solid recommendation and I was happy with how my flight went considering the layoff. Only negative is that throttle, pushing a knob in and out, ugh. The CFI didn't give me a time estimate but did say I should be back on my own in no time.

I will say the GPS sounds great but it is apparent it will take some time to get up to speed. Pretty awesome that I now have in my plane navigation technology as good, if not better, then the airlines had back when I was flying previously.

Overall, very excited to get back into action!
 
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I'm just thrilled to have apps like Foreflight and Garmin pilot on my apple device. These two apps are light years ahead when I stopped flying 10 years ago.
 
18 years off for me (had about 100 hrs). I'm about 11 hours in but I threw in getting TW endorsement. I can't rent the citabria until I have 15 hours dual anyway so I haven't even pushed the flight review. My instructor got a little gungho for the review until I pointed out that I can't rent the airplane and therefore can't act PIC so I don't even need it yet.

I would say the first few hours were that overwhelming behind the airplane feeling but by 8 hours or so I was comfortable with idea that I could perform well enough that I wasn't going to kill myself. Now we just work on improving and finding better crosswinds, etc.

I've started thinking lately that I probably should get back into 172s and 182s (I like them too) but I really am enjoying the citabria.

I try really hard to avoid Barnstormers/trade-a-plane/etc.
 
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