Glastar N275PA
A funny thing happens when you spend 10 years of your life building an airplane: You don’t fly much. The other thing that happens is that sooner or latter you actually have to get in the airplane you built and fly it! Should I worry about the left-over parts I had after I finished? All kidding aside, maintaining your currency is a big deal and not nearly as easy as it seems. There are two things that are in short supply while you’re building: money and time. Two years after I first flew my experimental Glastar I found myself lacking a level confidence having only enough flight experience to be legal, But am I safe? Probably, but not in anything but in the best of circumstances. For this year’s BFR (bi-annual flight review) I wanted to go back to the basics. I ended up designing my own BFR that zeroed in on the areas I thought were lacking.
Prior to this “Design your own BFR” epiphany, I ran across probably one of the best aviation resources currently on the net. We heard Rod Machado speak at Sun and Fun this year. His talk was excellent and of course he sprinkled his presentation with his trademark Machado humor humor. One of the things that Rod suggests in his really excellent book “Plane Talk” is to zero in on the things you’re most uncomfortable with and design training around it. A designer BFR was born.
I found a really great CFII at New Kent Aviation who agreed to work with me on the aspects of flying that I was most concerned with. My BFR this year is comprised of a 10 hour block of ground school and instruction that covers the following:
- Engine failures en-route, in the pattern and during take-off
- In flight emergencies such as fires, electrical failures, stuck gear and any other think we can dream up
- Night flying and night currency
- Complex aircraft check-out
- ATC communications, flight following and trips into class ‘C’ airspace
This seems like basic stuff and it is. Any Private Pilot student will get all of this and more during their training and will be proficient after their check ride. After the check ride though a funny thing happens: you start doing the stuff you want at the exclusion of the stuff you should be doing but don’t have to be doing. Case in point: VFR flight filing and flight following. I know that pilots have mixed feelings about filing flight plans but the way I see it, it’s cheap insurance. Free insurance actually. Why not use it? Why not use everything at your disposal for that matter to make flying safer. Like Rod says: safe flying is all about controlling and minimizing risk and we have control of more of those factors than we think.
