I’ve got my eye on flying a 172SP in our club that has a groovy Garmin 530 and 2-axis autopilot. A little more pricey than the 172s I usually fly, $126 an hour, but would be a great weekend getaway plane. I wrote my CFI to ask if I needed to know anything and he said he’d like to show me how to start it for my first time: it’s apparently very easy to flood the engine in a fuel-injected plane? He sent me the procedure and it made my head hurt, which got me thinking about how does one stay proficient in all these little things that I am endorsed for:
- flying high wings (my usual)
- flying low wings (not very often)
- using an HSI (the Archer has an HSI but I can never remember how to use it)
- complex aircraft (not very often)
- high performance (not in a couple of years)
- fuel-injected engines (so far not ever)
Maybe the trick is to choose just one plane and forget the rest? But I want to fly the club’s DA-40, too. And one day maybe I can afford the G1000 ?? And all this while still trying to keep PIC, night PIC and IFR current. Ugh, I need a second and third job.
I think it’s much more about how you fly than about how much you fly. I’m still in a low-flight-time phase of my life, so I try to get the most out of every dollar (Euro in my case…).
There is probably less fun in flying patterns than cross-country, but landings require a lot of practice. You’ll do much more for you IFR currency by flying three approaches at close-by airports than two hours of cruise. Needless to say the same applies to Night, and many others.
My two cents.
I recently checked-out in a G1000 Cessna 172SP which was a ton of fun. But, between flying that, the regular steam gauge 172SP, and trying out the DA-40, I too have wondered if I am better to focus on one or two planes to be the primary plane rather than three or more.