Artur Rubinstein who is acknowledged as one of the greatest pianists of all time put it like this:
"If I don't practise for a day I know the difference; if I don't practise for a week, the critics know the difference; if I don't practise for a month, the public knows".
Flying skills, especially the more advanced skills associated with instrument flight and fast aircraft, atrophy surprisingly quickly. For me, at any rate, even though I fly about 250 hours a year, whenever I don't fly for a few weeks when I go away on holiday or my plane is in for annual, I'm always grateful that I don't have a critic or a member of the public with me on my first flight.
