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Using flight sims to stay current

Hi all,

As everyone probably knows and as I now have noticed, staying current IFR requires much more work (at least for a novice) than staying current VFR. When I did the skill test earlier this year I was feeling pretty comfortable, quite obviously so considering that I had flown 1-3 times each week the preceding month, flying approach after approach (which is another topic).

Now that I do have my IR rating and use it for A->B I notice that it doesn’t take much to feel a bit rusty. When flying from A-B it’s always been vectors to the approach, which usually is ILS or VOR. I only do full procedures in training purposes as well as holding patterns and NDBs.

Another factor for me is that I need to get 100% comfortable with the G1000 way of doing things IFR.

Unfortunately winter is soon here and the number of hours will decrease rapidly in November (according to previous years). So to the question, how many of you use flight sims to stay current? If you do, what software do you use?

What is the point of an Export CofA?

These are traditionally done at a registry transfer e.g. G to N.

Bizzarely, in the case of my TB20, transferred in 2005, a letter from the DGAC (stating that the aircraft met FAA requirements when made in 2002) avoided the need for the Export CofA…

I cannot understand any of this charade – given that the accepting State (the FAA DAR in the case of a transfer to N) has to go over the whole plane and satisfy himself that it is all legit etc anyway.

The other aspect is that if you want to do a transfer and the exporting State does not co-operate, what do you do? There is a story (unverified) that some pilot flew a G-reg down to Australia, and while there needed an Annual. The UK CAA wanted to charge him for two inspectors to travel down there and demanded 1st class airline tickets (£10k or whatever) plus heavy hotel expenses and other charges. So he moved the plane to N-reg and flew back and stayed on the N-reg. Obviously he could not have had an Export CofA done in that case.

I did some notes on the transfer here but I don’t really understand the Export CofA stuff – what is the point?

First year of ownership completed

I just wanted to share with you my luck of my first year of ownership, which just completed without any major trouble.

I could tell a lot about what I’ve done this year and more about what I’ve learned. Maintenance-wise up front, of course. But in the end I think I was really lucky, too with what I was doing. And it really is the right moment to buy an aircraft, now, where costs of ownership have dropped significantly over the last years. I’m taking full benefit of the possibility of Owner-Maintenance.

Now as all seems to have turned out well, I can confess: I didn’t pay no-one to do a prebuy for me. I did a thorough check on my own on about everything, but honestly without knowing what to really look for in the documentation and the plane, even without opening up all the maintenance lids and things. I have a flying background all my life, and know some things and have ideas about what to look for, and I briefed myself on the major issues and topics on a Comanche, but this doesn’t replace a proper prebuy. I do the same with cars, by the way. I even haven’t flown similar types of aircraft or one having comparable equipment, so it was easy to have me impressed. In fact, my Comanche is my first aircraft and the first one I’ve flown having more than 180hp. That said, in the end, I trusted the seller and the world seems not to be so dark in all the places. The price was higher than what I initially wanted to pay for “an aircraft”, but I was happy with what I got, up to six places, the recent avionics upgrade and that all seemed to be working fine, where maintenance was performed with due diligence as it seemed.

The engine is running very fine and economic, and has more hours to go than I’ll probably fly in the next 15 years. After my first year I think I can summarize that my aircraft is in an overall very good condition – where one should take into account, that some parts are getting old, it’s a 1970ies aircraft in the end and obviously not everything gets replaced. So I take an extra care on things which might be affected by ageing. But for now I don’t mind, as long as it’s working as it should. I’ve spotted down some minor things to fix, all together in the low to mid 4-digit region, where the most expensive will be a re-check of the Aspen avionics installation, where I’m not all too satisfied with. But nothing which really needs immediate attention. I’m doing maintenance on my own as far as possible, which already included some repairs and fulfilling some ADs last year (heck, we’re talking about some 3-digit spare parts). This – to me – is a lot of fun and gives me a lot of trust in and knowledge about my aircraft.

So I’m eager to go into my second year. All ADs done, nothing there which was starting making trouble. So hopefully the second annual will be even less work and maybe even more fun and flying

What I like most about “owning” is the “self-fulfilling prophecy” style of how to spare free time. As the aircraft is there anyways and costs mainly what it costs anyways, we just have to use it to go to places.