Full Steam Ahead
I have a saying that I used to live by: never go back; life is too short to repeat past experiences.
My logbook attests that although my aviation experience hasn’t been in a straight line, starting with a Beechcraft Skipper, to a Piper Warrior, a Dakota, a Grumman Tiger, a C182, then a Foxbat, a Citabria, a Robin, an Archer and finally a Cirrus, I have seldom returned to the previous aircraft. In the past three years, I had flown nothing but the Cirrus, both the SR20 and the SR22, and once, in the luckiest of moments, the SF50 Cirrus Jet.
In the last twelve months, I have flown nothing at all. Having had the most difficult of years, personally speaking, I decided that my woes were too weighty to fly with me, and I feared I would not be able to leave them on the ground. After nine years of flying anything I could, I gave up flying. Or rather, I gave up general aviation: no PIC time, no co-pilot time, not even a joyride in a Tiger Moth. My time as a passenger on the A380 doubled, but logbook gathered dust, my ASIC expired and my pilots licence became as isolated as a Buddhist monk.
As those who have taken a break from aviation will know, it’s almost impossible to give up flying. It’s not like quitting drinking, giving up meat, or abstaining from
