First, I had to get current on the FAA side, a biannual review(BFR) and an instrument proficiency check(IPC) were needed for me to operate as pilot in command in both IFR/VFR conditions.
I did my BFR(VFR part) in a good old 1978 Cessna 172, had 1H ground/1H flight to complete.
Then came the instrument part, having flown different make and model single engine planes previously I wanted to try something new and decided to go for the Cessna 210, a 6seat 285hp "high performance" light aircraft.
I was pretty satisfied with my performance flying the beast, felt home from minute one ( I had flown C182/C208s which are pretty similar as a bush pilot a few years back...).
Our flight started with a so called "soft field take off" which roughly consist in breaking the plane off the ground before normal rotation speed and flying it in ground effect before climbing...
Then as soon as we took off I had a landing gear retraction malfunction ( I have the external GoPro footage of the landing gear failure and will share it just need to edit..), once problem solved we kept climbing under vectors for some practice approaches, ILS/VOR/GPS etc.
We then had a few unusual attitudes,stall, steeps turns under the hood and when the instructor was satisfied we came back for a full stop landing.
1.5H of flight on this amazing 1967 machine and it was over..
Everytime I see a cessna or any general aviation airplane my heart goes out to them and still consider whether I should go back to bush flying or eventualy land a job somewhere flying small planes..
Very unfortunate for me, the C210 was privatly owned and I could not rent it for solo flights.
Still I rented a C172 and had a great time flying both Solo and with friends which is really fortunate, everytime I step on a plane either as a passenger or as a pilot doesn't matter it is always the same feeling, I just can't stop lovin it.
So here is a (unfortunatly) very short video of my first time flying the C210.
Hope you enjoy
(Made a mistake while editing the video this was not my first time landing a small plane in two years it was my first time landing the c210 as I had first flow the C172 on this trip)
Etops Flyers