Private Pilot: Maintaining Currency

As I might have mentioned more than once, my IFR journey is going very very very very slow! I haven’t finished my required cross country time and haven’t been out flying. Life got in the way! With a recent job change and weekends becoming busier with a hyper active toddler, its hard to find 3-4 hours required for me to drive to the airport, get cross country time in and drive back. My thought process has been, if I cant get a clear day and enough time for me to do cross country, I’d rather spend that time at home. However, I can’t get rusty by not flying so I have been doing bare minimum for now. My last cross country was about 2 months ago where I got a $100 burger with the high school buddy of mine.

This past saturday, I broke the almost 2 month long streak of no flying! I needed to get this done because my flight school – Regal Air has a 60 day currency requriement. Meaning you are required to fly with Regal atleast once every 60 days. If not, you need to fly with an instructor before being able to rent. While strict, I think its a good policy to ensure pilot profeciency and safety. So, to add to my cross country time and maintain currency, I decided to go for a flight. Unfortunately, I had booked the plane only for a couple of hours which meant I could do the shortest of cross country flights (to Port Angeles) and that too would be cutting it close if things get delayed. I decided to play it by ear so had not filed a cross country flight plan. Prior to leaving my home, I checked the enroute and destination weather and everything was green. I got to the airport right on time, checked out the plane, did my pre-flight. It was a pretty busy day at the airport given the clear weather. I knew that if I get stuck at the runway for take off clearance, it would add to the time and it would be challenging to come back in time. Given all this, I decided I won’t do a cross country flight but instead head over to Jefferson county airport, do a couple of touch and gos and be back.

It was a nice, calm and clear but hazy day in pacific northwest. The flight to Jefferson county airport is a pretty short one. Aftter getting there, I decided to do a couple of touch and goes. However, on my first approach I thought I was a bit too high and decided to do a go around. In reviewing the video (you can watch it below), I think I could have made the landing but I think my decision to go around was a good one. I don’t want to be in a situation when I am planning for a touch and go and don’t have enough runway ahead of me to take off. My second approach was pretty good, after which I headed back to Paine field. All in all it was a good short flight for me to maintain my currency. Here is a video for anyone interested (43 minute video sped up to 3 minutes 40 seconds):