What’s your aviation goal for 2015?
It came to me as I was writing this question on Twitter that I hadn’t set a goal for myself. So I did, right then and there: fly 100 hours. I had logged 50 hours in 2013 and about 60 in 2014. One hundred hours equates to about two hours per week. That’s doable, right? One $100 hamburger trip or two sessions in the pattern.
Except that as I write this, I’m already behind schedule. Much like the person who vows to start a diet on January 1 and eats an ice cream sundae that very day, I’m off to a bad start. It was January 28 before I was able to log hour one in 2015.
Weather is partially to blame. We’re still in the clutches of winter here in the mid-Atlantic. Student pilot Katrina Morisen wrote this prayer on Facebook:
Dear Lord,
In the name of VFR pilots everywhere, please give us good weather on days we don’t have to work and bad weather on days we do, so we won’t miss the sky so much? Thank you,
VFR pilots everywhere.
I can relate. Even an instrument-rated pilot needs to carefully consider freezing levels at this time of year, especially when she flies a 1960s-era airplane that doesn’t have anti-icing equipment.
Cold temperatures complicate matters further. I pulled out the airplane on January 18 to discover a dead battery. My airplane hangar doesn’t have electrical power, so I can’t leave the battery on a trickle charger when I’m not flying it.
Lesson learned: Remove battery, take home, place on trickle charger.
My hangar neighbor John is a good role model. We generally cross paths on Saturday mornings, and I can set my watch by when he arrives to pull out his Bonanza. John flies each weekend, and if weeks go by and he doesn’t see me, he chides me. “The airplane needs to fly,” he says. He’s right, of course.
It cheers and inspires me, however, to read and hear about others’ goals for the coming year. Casey Hansen, who owns a Piper Tri-Pacer and blogs about it online, says he wants to fly regularly, attend at least five fly-ins, give more airplane rides, and introduce his infant son Flynn to aviation by bringing him to the airport,
as a start.
Steve Thorne said he has many flying goals for 2015, but “near the top of the list is to get my instrument rating.” Thorne creates immersive, instructional aviation YouTube videos under the handle Flight Chops, and if you happen to follow his channel, he assures you that he plans to share his journey to the IFR ticket—just as he has done with his tailwheel flying and many other experiences.
Rose Dorcey successfully passed the commercial certificate knowledge test in December and said she planned to start learning the maneuvers in 2015. And John L. Conway IV said he was hoping to log 26 hours. “It would be the most I’ve flown since trainingWhen life geif I do,” he said.
Large or small, dead serious or humorous—like the airline pilot who said he hopes he’ll fly 100 hours instead of the usual 600 to 800—goals keep us motivated to get out there, which helps to keep us proficient and safe. And that helps us to enjoy flying even more. I’ll try to keep that in mind the next time I’m tempted to let another week slide by without climbing into the cockpit.
