resume flying after 25 year layoff

When I was young I got my license the week I turned 18. I left flying when
I left my first wife. I would like to resume flying, but want to focus on
IFR simulation (most cost effective) at home training before beginning
actual flight training. Any advice would be appreciated to help me develop
a cost effective way to re-learn to fly. Thanks David

In article qph2d.201376$mD.75730@attbi_s02,
David Banahan wrote:
When I was young I got my license the week I turned 18. I left flying when
I left my first wife. I would like to resume flying, but want to focus on
IFR simulation (most cost effective) at home training before beginning
actual flight training. Any advice would be appreciated to help me develop
a cost effective way to re-learn to fly. Thanks David



I too got my private certificate 21 years ago and have just started
flying again.

I found that the air work came back very quickly -- level flight, turns, etc.

The biggest problems I ran into were landings and airspace changes. I was
also pretty rusty on communications procedures. Then again, I was starting
to fly again from FRG, not quite rural Alabama where I had learned.

It took me 6.5 hours with an instructor to get a flight review signoff. That
included a night cross-country since my night hours were so low.

Also, I had spent a good amount of time before getting in the air going over
the airspace changes. I also read as much as I could on communications
procedures and interpreting the Metars and TAFs.

Since my signoff I have been doing mostly cross-country flying -- just
enjoying it again. I have not taken any passengers yet. And I am still
limiting myself to runways 3000' or greater (C172) until I am happier and
more consistent with my landings (my go-arounds are great though!).

Good luck on getting back into the air -- it's worth it.

John

David Banahan wrote:
When I was young I got my license the week I turned 18. I left flying when
I left my first wife. I would like to resume flying, but want to focus on
IFR simulation (most cost effective) at home training before beginning
actual flight training. Any advice would be appreciated to help me develop
a cost effective way to re-learn to fly. Thanks David

Hi Dave, welcome back.

I'm not much of a sim flyer myself, but I'd think the strength of the sims is
developing your scan and hand-eye coordination, not learning procedures. Perhaps
if you already have a basic knowledge of procedures, you can use the sim to
practice them.

I'd think after a 25-year layoff, your challenge is going to be learning how
procedures have changed in the interim, and I don't see how using the sim is
going to help with that. If you want to do it by self-study to save money, I'd
think you want to spend your time studying the AIM, rather than with a joystick.
Maybe you've already done that, in which case, never mind.

I think there's a risk of practicing wrong procedures with the sim.

Consider also looking at rec.aviation.simulators.

Good luck!

Dave

Go to www.aopa.org
They have a paper/document on getting back into flying after a long layoff.

David Banahan wrote:
When I was young I got my license the week I turned 18. I left flying when
I left my first wife. I would like to resume flying, but want to focus on
IFR simulation (most cost effective) at home training before beginning
actual flight training. Any advice would be appreciated to help me develop
a cost effective way to re-learn to fly. Thanks David

On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 14:27:38 GMT, "David Banahan"
wrote:

Dave - I quit flying about 25 years ago when my kids started college
and the finances were getting tight. I bought a copy of Flight Sim
years ago and have enjoyed flying in the 'virtual flying world'.
I joined Vatsim which simulates real ATC pretty well. I was an
instrument pilot so especially enjoyed setting the weather to 300 and
1 and practicing instrument approaches. After several years of this,
I decided to attempt to pass the flight physical and start back to
flying for real again. I passed the physical, went to a flight school
(actually a couple before I found one I liked), and re-qualified. It
took me 4 hours dual before the instructor would sign me off, but
it was enjoyable all the way, I needed the training. I have since
bought into a partnership in a Cessna 182 and have greatly enjoyed
flying for the past couple of years.

There are many slurs against flight sim, but I found the practice to
be of great help. Of course you don't have the feel, which is very
important, but it is very good for practicing instrument flying if you
do it honestly. If I were you, I would buy a copy of the FAR/AIM,
study it for a week or so, then make an appointment with a cfi and
go try it out. In the meantime, learn how to fly the flight sim
program the realistic way and enjoy the experience.













When I was young I got my license the week I turned 18. I left flying when
I left my first wife. I would like to resume flying, but want to focus on
IFR simulation (most cost effective) at home training before beginning
actual fligh ttraining.Anyadvicewouldbeappreciatedtohelpmedevel op
a cost effective way to re-learn to fly. Thanks David

Yesterday I soloed a pilot who had a current flight review and medical. He
had obtained his license over 20 years ago. Has no
cross-country time. Total time over 200 hours. Has glider and tail wheel
add-ons.
How was this possible?
Gene Whitt
He learned at uhaO
(Spelled backwards)

IFR simulation (most cost effective) at home training before beginning
actual flight training. Any advice would be appreciated to help me develop
a cost effective way to re-learn to fly.

Re IFR simulation, you might want to take a look at ASA's IP Trainer. I
have kind of a love/hate relationship with it as the concept is
absolutely outstanding but it may be the buggiest released software I
have ever encountered. I just finished helping with the beta test for
7.0 and found it improved but still buggy.

The concept is to present an extensive series of lessons from the basics
to advanced, monitoring the student's performance and giving very
precise feedback. Audio and scrolling text feedback during plus
"evaluation" after the exercise. On the simple altitude/heading hold
you will get little diagrams showing your maximum altitude deviation,
maximum heading deviation, etc. for each phase of the exercise. On more
advanced lessons you might get 4 or more parameters measured times 5 or
6 phases of the "flight." If you screw up badly, it stops you and you
can back up at bit and try again. If you fly to specified standards,
you "pass" the lesson.

Major bugs still in the beta include the way they handle the panel timer
-- the monitoring software often does not detect that you start it, then
stops you with a "timer not started" error even as you watch the timer
run happily on the panel. Another beauty is that when you stop and go
back because of an error, the software sometimes gives the trim a good
whirl -- when you restart what was a trimmed airplane you are instantly
in a dive.

But compared to just wandering around using a free flight simulator,
this is much better for training. As a computer designer and programmer
by trade, my bug tolerance might be lower than most, too. (It must be,
as Jackie at ASA seems sort of politely bemused by my feedback.) So YMMV.

"Gene Whitt" wrote in message
nk.net...
Yesterday I soloed a pilot who had a current flight review and medical.
He
had obtained his license over 20 years ago. Has no
cross-country time. Total time over 200 hours. Has glider and tail wheel
add-ons.
How was this possible?

Gliderport bum. Local glider flying with some time in tow planes.

Dave Butler wrote in message ...
David Banahan wrote:
When I was young I got my license the week I turned 18. I left flying when
I left my first wife. I would like to resume flying, but want to focus on
IFR simulation (most cost effective) at home training before beginning
actual flight training. Any advice would be appreciated to help me develop
a cost effective way to re-learn to fly. Thanks David

Hi Dave, welcome back.

I'm not much of a sim flyer myself, but I'd think the strength of the sims is
developing your scan and hand-eye coordination, not learning procedures. Perhaps
if you already have a basic knowledge of procedures, you can use the sim to
practice them.

Interesting. I just passed my IA checkride with 60 hours in the bird
and maybe 10 in sims, 5 in an AST-300 and 5 on FS2004.

In my case I found it easier (!?!) to do air work in my real 172 than
the digital one in FS04. I have a nice CH yoke and all but no matter
how I fiddled I never got the feel anywhere close- pitch sensitivity
in particular seemed extremely high in the sim and I was boinging my
altitude +/- 500' which I haven't done in the real plane in 40 hours,
even on turbulent days.

OTOH, the procedures seemed quite strong, and I found that I made most
of the same mistakes in the sim that I made in the real lesson. FS04
has interactive ATC which is IMHO accurate enough to be useful (if you
crank the speed and traffic density up all the way) to offer you a
broad range of distractions. The approaches are all built based on
Jeppesen data so they match up very well to the real world. I did not
use any of the canned Rod Machado "lessons" that are included with the
game so I can't comment on their usefulness.

My experience was that FS04 could be a good supplement to actual
lessons, for instance to practice approaches, holding patterns, etc.
But I would be reluctant to use it before having a CFII teach the
basic procedure. I probably could have used it more than I did, but I
already spend all day sitting in front of a computer. YMMV.

Best,
-cwk.

Yeahh, flying kinda got away from me too.

One could call it a shame, after all that I (and the government!) invested
in getting me all those ratings.

I don't know ... maybe it's the pull of life's other demands ... maybe its
the memory of hearing that Electra FE squawk about how his daughter -- that
hasn't seen him in 2 years -- is on drugs ... maybe it was that "conga-line"
at EWR during a sweltering 95-degree day in the "Sky-Pig", trying to keep
passengers and company happy while maintaining minimum dispatch fuel on s/e
taxi (#13 for departure; and yes, for you snotty ones that were never there,
s/e was not approved by the ops man) ... maybe it's 9/11 ... maybe it was
the non-stop corporate bankruptcies and furloughs ... maybe it was an
existence on Regional Airline pay ... maybe it's me ... I don't know.

What I do know is that one day, I said "to hell with it" ... I'd had enough.
I'm now happily driving my bread truck and watering my lawn. And that
Saturday morning stroll down a country lane ain't too bad, either.

On occasion, I peruse aviation sites such as this one and observe that not
much has changed in the industry. I then declare ... "well, at least I made
*one* right choice!"

.... ktcsu&tdsd



"David Banahan" wrote in message
news:qph2d.201376$mD.75730@attbi_s02...
When I was young I got my license the week I turned 18. I left flying
when
I left my first wife. I would like to resume flying, but want to focus on
IFR simulation (most cost effective) at home training before beginning
actual flight training. Any advice would be appreciated to help me
develop
a cost effective way to re-learn to fly. Thanks David