The weather has finally cleared. The hustle and bustle of the holidays and new year have passed. You are ready to get into a plane and back in the groove. As you pack your flight bag to head to the airport, you check your logbook to ensure you meet your flight school insurance currency requirements. Good news! You are current. You did three solo landings in the Cessna 172 58 days ago. Forty-five days before that, you took a CFI up with you to get current again.

You have six landings and an hour of flying in the previous six months. Is your pulse starting to rise? Feeling a little uneasy as you watch your family preparing to fly with you today? Are you current? Yes. Proficient? Probably not. But what exactly does it mean to be proficient?

What Makes a Pilot Current?

Currency is the legal requirement for you to go fly. A 70-hour private pilot who only does three landings every 90 days is not sufficiently proficient to make an overnight long cross-country with friends and family on board. The instrument pilot who flies every six months to do the same six approaches in the flight simulator has no business flying in actual IFR conditions.

If you have an instrument rating, and even if you do not, using a flight simulator appropriately can help you maintain proficiency. A pilot who is simply maintaining FAA and insurance-mandated requirements either in an airplane or simulator is current, but they are not proficient.

What Makes a Pilot Proficient?

Conversely, a proficient pilot is prepared, confident, able, and of course, current. When you’re prepared, you have appropriate and current aeronautical charts — you did update Foreflight, didn’t you? You have examined and you understand the weather after a thorough pre-flight briefing. Calling the ASOS 10 minutes before leaving the house does not qualify as a thorough pre-flight briefing. You have also considered risk mitigation; remember, the unexpected can and does happen.

A Proficient Pilot Knows Their “Stuff”

Whether you use old school paper charts or an Electronic Flight Bag (EFB), such as Foreflight, FltPlanGo, or Garmin Pilot, your charts must be current and appropriate for your mission. If you use an EFB, knowing how to use your app of choice is critical to flight safety.

When the EFB revolution began several years ago, I decided to make my first paperless flight. I planned a flight in a Piper Archer from Burlington, N.C., to Mount Washington, N.H., with a fuel stop in Allentown, Pa. The weather was forecast as marginal VFR, so I thought, No problem! Let’s launch. About an hour and a half into the flight, I started calculating, figuring, and worrying. The weather was worse than expected; I was in hard IFR down below minimums with winds 20 knots higher than forecast.

Aha! I thought. My new EFB will save me! I’ll divert to Lancaster, Pa., to refuel and recheck the weather. Then the panic set in. I thought I had downloaded all the charts and approaches for the entire route into my device, but I had only downloaded my landing points’ approaches. Fortunately, Air Traffic Control (ATC) was extremely helpful in providing the information I needed to land safely. I learned a valuable lesson that day: You must be an expert with your EFB and first practice using it in VFR conditions with an instructor or competent safety pilot.

I considered the risks of having to divert during preflight planning, but I failed to consider the risks of using a new-to-me EFB in actual IFR for the first time. Had I brought along my trusty paper charts, practiced more with my EFB in VFR, or read the EFB user manual more thoroughly, I could have better mitigated those risks.

A Proficient Pilot Knows the Weather

While my weather situation on that trip was a bit extreme, imagine how often you have rescheduled a few days before a flight lesson. The local weather anchor predicted foreboding conditions, yet you’re on the ground staring at beautiful clear skies on lesson day. Even worse, another student grabbed your desired plane and instructor.

Part of learning the art of aviation is learning to be your own meteorologist. That does not mean throw caution to the wind and ignore the weather data. You need to learn how to interpret the weather and make informed go/no-go decisions. Fortunately, your flight instructor is always willing to help you understand what the forecasts are, and they will help you establish or evaluate your personal minimums.

**A Proficient Pilot is Sufficiently Confident**

Let’s be honest: Confidence is not something most pilots lack. Are you familiar with the five hazardous attitudes of machismo, invulnerable, impulsive, resignation, and anti-authority? Four of the five hazardous attitudes stem from over-confidence. However, you need to be confident in your abilities to plan, execute, and complete your flights safely. If you have an uneasy feeling about departing because you are in a plane you have not flown recently, you have different avionics, or the mission is stretching your abilities, perhaps it is time to pump the brakes and call in a CFI for some refresher training.

How Do I Become and Remain Proficient?

Of course, flying more often will help you maintain proficiency. Another way to become a proficient pilot is to participate in the FAA Wings Program, the FAA’s Pilot Proficiency Program. You can select the tasks and subjects you want and need to review, and you can get valuable flight instructor critiques following your flights. As a bonus, completing a phase of Wings counts as your flight review.

The next time you plan to fly, ask yourself, “I may be current, but am I proficient?” Talk to your flight instructor today about how to develop personal minimums and a personal proficiency plan.

As a child, Chris Whittle knew he would fly someday. After he completed his first solo at age 16, Chris' flying career has quite literally taken off. In his nearly 20 years of training countless students, he is among the most respected flight instructors in North Carolina. The Alamance County native and East Carolina University graduate has amassed more than 12,000 hours of flight time and has been identified by the FAA as a Designated Pilot Examiner. He has administered more than 1,500 checkrides since becoming a DPE. Learn more about Chris and the rest of the Elon Aviation staff at www.elonaviation.com.