Life keeps getting in the way of flying. We know that the best way to keep our skills and judgment level high is to fly frequently and take recurrent training every six months—just like the pros. But with seven-dollar avgas, we certainly aren’t flying nearly as frequently as we would like, and few of us schedule recurrent training more often than required by the FARs.
We know we should do more to keep our hands in—to fight the growth of aeronautical verdigris on our abilities. And, we’ve got our training manuals and DVDs we used to get our last rating, but those are not targeted at proficiency, are presented in lengthy segments and a lot of them can cure the worst case of insomnia.