Originally Posted by
SNS3Guppy
People who believe the same thing manage to kill themselves every year.
There's a reason that minimum proficiency and recency of experience standards, and proficiency checks and flight reviews are established by each governing body which issues pilot certificates.
Maybe, but I only said "stick and rudder skills" - safely operating an aeroplane: with all of the additional skills of RT, SA, system management, checks... is much more than
just the stick and rudder skills.
Related to which, I do very much agree with those who emphasise the importance of the quality of the flying. Certain critical bits of flying - PFLs, circuits, diversions, go-arounds, stalls - need reasonable practice. Somebody flying 40 hours per year who only ever flies the same cross country route for lunch, arguably isn't likely to be as sharp as somebody flying 20 hours, but with a monthly PFL, varied circuits and routes, and practice emergencies or bit of stalling every few months. Plus of-course the time and effort of planning and preparation - not just turning up and jumping in.
A plug on his behalf for anybody who's not read it - there's a really good chapter on this in John Farley's book "View from the Hover" - on how to use limited flying to best advantage to keep flying skills sharp.
Plus, you can make a good case that it's more rewarding working yourself hard like that to keep the flying sharp. I'd even go so far as to call it fun.
G