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:

Despite challenging winter weather conditions that often hinder general aviation, pilots can maintain currency and proficiency by adapting their flying habits and utilizing available resources.
Embracing night flying, when daylight hours are shorter, is a key strategy but requires thorough preparation, adherence to regulations, and increased vigilance due to diminished visibility and potential icing hazards.
Advanced Aviation Training Devices (simulators) are invaluable tools for all pilots, including instructors, to maintain instrument skills, practice procedures, and supplement flight hours, especially when real-world flying is limited by weather.
Safety in winter flying demands extra attention to pre-flight planning, including allowing time for deicing, meticulous weather monitoring, studying routes, and ensuring proper carbon monoxide detection in the cockpit.

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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.