Schanen51

Good day everyone, and thank you in advance for reading my post!

I guess I'll start this whole thing by explaining my situation. I am currently enrolled in ATP Flight school, coming up onto my instrument checkride shortly. I am also an actively participating member in the USMC reserves. The time has come for my unit, and we have been called upon for a 12 month activation. Luckily, I will (more than likely) have just enough time to complete CFI school if everything goes according to plan. My question to y'all, is what would be the best way to stay proficient in my knowledge? 12 months out of the plane worries me because of the possibility of losing much of the knowledge that I am currently working so hard to learn. The obvious answer would be to study... however has anyone been through this sort of thing before? Do any of y'all have some tips as to how to retain as much aviation related knowledge as possible? Thank you for the help!

rickair7777

The answer is you can't.

You can study books, and chair fly, that will ease your transition back into the cockpit but there's no way to stay current without an airplane.

You'll need a little dual when you get back. But any school you go to work for will do some standardization flying, so that will help with instructor stuff. You'll probably have to BFR/IPC on your own first. Unless the school really likes you.

Stay safe.

aeroengineer

Been down this road more than a few times in the reserves. Hated deployments because between pre-deployment training and the deployment you may be out of the air for 12-18 months. Fortunately that part of my life is now behind me. Had I been able to do it over again I would have bailed and concentrated on the flying. The only civilian line of work that doesn't suffer from reserve service is a seniority based job like the airlines where you already have your training and the seniority system guarantees advancement while gone. Airlines themselves hate it because former mil pilots often get hired/get seniority number then immediately drop a year or more of mil leave to get past crappy pay/schedules of the first couple of years. Any other civilian career will in all likelihood suffer USERRA not withstanding. Mine did. One upside is the multiple deployments meant I got more Post 9-11 GI Bill Funds for flight training. Something to think about. Good luck