How to Winterize Your Flying

There are may ways to preserve and protect skills if you have to take a break from the cockpit.

Meg Godlewski

Monday, December 29, 2025 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

If you take a break from flying for the winter months, you not only lose currency, you lose proficiency. [Credit: Meg Godlewski]

Key Takeaways:

Winter flying in regions with predominantly IFR conditions requires pilots to be more creative and dedicated to maintaining skills, despite challenges like shorter days, adverse weather, and diminished visibility.
Safe winter operations demand heightened attention to detail, including thorough preflight inspections (e.g., de-icing, carbon monoxide checks), meticulous weather briefings, and adapting to the unique aspects of night flying.
Pilots can maintain and enhance proficiency during winter by leveraging opportunities such as night flying, utilizing Advanced Aviation Training Devices (simulators), scheduling dual instruction, and engaging in ground-based learning.

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When you tell someone you are a pilot and live in a state that has predominantly IFR conditions November through March, they inevitably make a reference to all flight training ceasing in the winter because of the weather. And there is some truth to this, as I learned as a student pilot in the Pacific Northwest.

Seattle leads the nation in cloudy and foggy days, according to weather statistics gathered by Currentresults.com, coming in with 226 cloudy and 165 foggy days per year, followed closely by Portland, Oregon, with 165 cloudy and 125 foggy. Combine a low ceiling with a low freezing level, and you will find a great many general aviation pilots opt to stay on the ground, planning to fly on a better weather day.