2005 Cirrus SR-22 GTS N323W

After a 17-year hiatus from flying, I got back into it and bought this Cirrus in 2005.  When I was flying back in the 1980’s, I was busy covering a 5-state area as a salesman.  I was flying all over the place and it was a rare case when I would go more than 2 weeks without flying.

When I left that job to pursue my own company, I no longer had a reason to fly on a regular basis.  I’d go up every couple of months or so just to stay current and for enjoyment, but I could tell that my performance wasn’t as sharp as I’d like on the instrument approaches.  I’ve always been a chicken pilot, and I figured that if I couldn’t fly enough to stay really good at it, then I’d better put it on hold.  As I tell people, “They’ve never left one up there, yet”.

I missed flying, but always expected that someday, I would get back to it.  My wife was always prepared for me to come home some day and tell her that I’d been to the airport, and that I wanted to start flying again.  That happened in 2005.

I had been at a horse show where a pilot friend of mine was also showing.  We spent a couple days talking about flying and it got my juices flowing again.  On a trip back to Chicago a couple weeks later I met with the Cirrus salesman and we took the plane up for a flight.  Once again, I was hooked.

We used the plane a lot to fly from Scottsdale, AZ to Las Vegas since we had a home in both places.  I used the plane to go back and forth between AZ and Michigan in the spring and fall.  When we were in Michigan during the summer, we’d fly all over the place.  I was able to fly enough to stay very comfortable with my skills.