Since gaining my license last September I have struggled with this question. To date I have been "lucky" to get 1 to 2 hours a month and I worry if this is enough. The main reasons tend to be:
- not enough expendable cash at the time I want to use some for flying. It could of course be argued that if you can't be sure you can keep up you should have considered whether to take up flying in the first place!
- pressure of work restricting me to weekends a lot of the time
- availability of aircraft when I am available (not being overloaded with cash I am restricted to using club hires)
- weather's never right when you need it to be (everbody will suffer from this of course)
I have considered a number of options including sharing trips with others in similar position as myself - this at least provides the option to go twice as far for the same price at least. (This has only been successful once and it only turned out to be some serious crosswind revision whilst checking out on the PA28.) It seems that every time I ask around the club "does anyone fancy sharing" there is loads of enthusiasm, but when push comes to shove.............
In common with a previous post I spend many of my relaxation hours going through various scenarios in my mind, e.g. how do I get from A to B and what do I have to do to get there, clearances, restrictions etc. and the others mentioned previously. I'm sure it helps a lot but nothing beats the real thing.
Over and out for now from a frustrated Blackbushe flyer (sometimes)
Steve