returned to flight (a little long)

I posted here a few months ago about returning to flying after a 4 year
layoff. I finally got in the air two days ago. I joined a flying club
that operates an Arrow 180, so I can also get some retract experience as
all of my prior time is in FG airplanes. I flew 2.4 hours for the first
flight mainly going through a Wings program since I needed a BFR anyway,
might as well kill two birds with one stone. Spent an hour on maneuvers
and an hour on T&L. Finished up with some hood work and then shot an
ILS approach. I was pretty amazed at how fast things came back. I
think the biggest problem I had was transitioning to the Arrow.

I owned a Skylane for 6 years and have about 400 hours of 182 time. The
Arrow is fairly different from the Skylane. Very heavy on the rudders
as compared to the 182, slightly heavier in pitch and roll. Much less
performance, especially take-off and climb. Similar cruise speed. The
panel layout is completely different and that was taking the most
getting used to. Also, the avionics are almost all different as well.

The retract gear took surpising little time to get used to, but the
Piper automatic gear is a pain in the butt. It takes about 100 MPH
before you can retract it on TO, unless you lift the override lever.

I was rather pleased with my flying skills after 4 years of rust. The
manevuers went well and the instructor just had me run through one
demonstration of each, no need for repetition. My basic hood skills
seemed fine and even my scan came back within minutes. I felt very
comfortable and the Arrow is at least as stable as the 182, maybe even
more stable.

The only part that didn't go as well as I'd have liked was the approach.
Then again, I wasn't at all prepared for that as we'd really planned
only the Wings/BFR stuff for this first flight. However, I think the
instructor got bored and decided to try an approach. He handed me his
Jepp chart for the ILS 24 at ELM and took the airplane to give me a few
minutes to study it. I've always used NOS charts so finding stuff on
the Jepp was a challenge. However, after buying current NOS charts, I
see that they have completely redesigned the plates since I last flew.
I like them much better, but they are different so that will take some
time. I was behind the airplane and flew through the localizer before
getting it captured. Tracking it was rough, but I did stay within two
dots. The glideslope went well, but that was likely accidental. I
identified all of the navaids, but failed to switch the marker beacons
on the audio panel and then was perplexed when they didn't go off.
However, I did get the plane down to DH in good enough shape to make a
decent landing. I was about 50' off the centerline at the 250' DH and
just a little high, but in real conditions it would have been a workable
approach.

Looks like the hardest part to get back on track is the habits such as
the 5Ts, studying an unfamiliar approach in the airplane, getting the
avionics set up properly and, of course, relearning the regulations.
The basic flying seems to be fine, including flying by reference to the
instruments. Even with the fairly turbulent air Friday evening, my
basic instrument flying was decent and my visual approaches and landings
weren't bad considering I was also making a model transition in the
process. I think if I was in my Skylane, even the visual approaches and
landings would have been much better. The Arrow doesn't glide nearly as
well as the 182 so I did come in too low on the first two approaches and
I was low on the power fail simulation. That 3-blade prop makes a good
speed brake when you throttle back.

If anyone else here is toying with the idea of getting back in the sky
after a long hiatus, I'd encourage you to go for it. I was really
expecting it to be a significant challenge, but it wasn't all that bad.
The IFR skills will take some more work, but the basic hood flying
skills will likely come back almost imediately. It is the "system"
skills that seem weakest, at least for me. Also, I've never flown a GPS
approach so that will take a little practice. The good news is that the
Arrow no longer has an ADF, so I don't have to worry about brushing up
that particular skill!


Matt