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Maintaining Proficiency for Free

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Pilots can productively use bad weather days for training instead of flying.
  • Effective home-based options include "chair flying" or using a flight simulator to practice procedures and planned routes.
  • For enhanced learning, pilots can go to the airport and practice checklists and emergency procedures directly in the tied-down aircraft, maintaining proficiency for free.
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When the weather’s truly awful the decision to stay on the ground rather than fly is easy. But you’ve budgeted this time for flying anyway so why not get some use out of it?

You might instead decide to “chair fly,” where you sit down and mentally go through various checklist items. If you have a flight simulator program on your PC, you could choose to fly the flight you’d hoped to make that day. You could even dial in the truly awful weather conditions to see what it would have been like to fly — no doubt confirming your decision to cancel the trip.

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