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Staying Proficient

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Pilot proficiency, critical for safety and distinct from legal currency, is highly perishable and increasingly challenging to maintain, especially with advanced avionics.
  • Unlike sophisticated airline simulators, most general aviation (GA) simulators fall short in replicating specific aircraft types, cockpits, and real-world avionics for true proficiency building.
  • Due to limitations in regulations, equipment, and budgets, achieving GA pilot proficiency today often necessitates a multi-faceted approach combining specific custom simulators, approved devices for legal currency, and actual flight time.
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Staying proficient, or getting there if you’re not proficient, has long been a challenge for the typical general-aviation pilot. Of course, a proficient pilot is much more likely to be a safe pilot than the pilot who’s rusty.

We’ve long claimed that there’s a significant difference between legal currency and proficiency. That’s unchanged. If anything, the difference has grown, driven by the advanced avionics and systems we increasingly find in our planes today. So, let’s agree that proficiency—including with the avionics—is the goal and hope that legal currency will come with it.

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