First flight in 7 years
After around 5,000 hours of flying, including instructing and examining at CPL/IR level, life circumstances meant that I had to take a break from aviation around 7 years ago.
Now, it's time for me to get flying again - and I can't wait!
I'm going to be renewing my SEP and IR later this month. I want to get through that as cheaply as possible (even a single, when it's equipped for an IR renewal, is not cheap) and then get into flying something more fun after that - so I figure the better prepared I can be, the easier it's going to be.
So my question is - what's changed in aviation in the last 7 years that I ought to know about? I figure the flying itself won't have changed much (I'd guess there's more emphasis on RNAV approaches for the IR than there used to be, but that's about it?) But the admin side of things, I assume, must have moved on a bit? The kinds of questions I have are: where's the best place to get weather information from? Where should I go to get NOTAMs? LASORS was pretty much phased out when EU-FCL came into force - is there a replacement for LASORS yet? Where do you go to get definitive legal documents, e.g. Rules of the Air, or the ANO? Anything else I should know that I haven't thought of?
(I noticed that the post immediately before mine is from someone else looking to get back into flying after an even longer break - it's obviously a good time to re-join the community, for those of us who are fortunate enough to have some money left over after paying an arm and a leg for our electricty bills!)
Thanks!
FFF