I actually flew an airplane

One of the downsides to instructing is that although I spend a lot of time in airplanes as PIC it's rare that I actually get to fly one.

It's been over a month since I logged a landing, for example, which means it's probably been over a month since I actully touched the controls as well.

My club requires 3 hours within 180 days, or a checkout flight with an instructor, to fly the Cirrus and 182RG and, well, it had been ages since I'd flown the Cirrus so I wasn't current.

I decided to grab an instructor and go out in our SR-20 so I could start flying it again. Since my night currency was set to expire we scheduled the flight after sunset so I could log the required three night takeoffs and landings.

And, while I watch a lot of approaches with my instrument student, I rarely fly an approach as "sole manipulator of the controls." In fact, the last approach I logged was on my CFII checkride, three months ago.

So we decided to throw in a hold and an approach as well to make efficient use of time.

It was a beautiful night and the Cirrus was just like I remembered it so the airwork went just fine. We did a few steep turns then I went on the gauges and flew the hold at LORDY, on the VOR-B into Buffalo.

I guess all the hours watching my instrument student fly approaches in the sim paid off because I wasn't as rusty as I expected and managed to keep the needles nicely centered.

The winds aloft at 3,000 feet were strong out of the west and it took some doing to get my inbound leg even close to one minute. Even flying the outbound leg for 20 seconds wasn't short enough. Our groundspeed downwind was 146 knots, into the wind it was down to about 85.

We did three trips around the hold then flew the GPS-14L back into Crystal, which worked out just fine, despite a 25-degree correction for the crosswind on the final approach course.

The surface winds were light though, 180 at 4, so the landing was simple enough.

At pattern altitude the winds were easily 25 knots and it took a big correction angle to track the runway. It's bizarre to be sliding along final with a massive crab angle only to have it all go away 100 feet off the deck and land with no wind to speak of.

Anyhow, I'm current in the Cirrus again so I need to go fly it a bunch to start getting ready to go through the CSIP deal up at the factory.

It sure was nice to actually fly an airplane again.