Happy New Year!

We begin anew once again - 2012 has come and gone, Gina and I have been married for over a year, and I logged more fun time in the sky. It's hard to believe that we've already reached another new year but I'm optimistic that both my aviation and personal life will see some real positive growth in 2013. Check out my goals below to understand what I mean by that last point.

Prior Recaps: 2010 | 2011 | 2012

The best news is that my hours-flown chart spiked in the right direction for the first time since I passed my checkride back in 2008. I logged, literally to the tenth of an hour, the same amount of time in 2012 that I did in 2010 - a 43% increase over 2011! Even ignoring my 4.5 hours of safety pilot time, it was over 25% better. I still didn't fly as much as I wanted (heck, I didn't even climb into a plane until April!) but I'm quite happy about the improvement.

Total Hours: 40.8 | Solo: 7.3 | XC: 11.5 | Dual: 2.7 | Safety Pilot/SIC: 4.5 | Landings: 84

Aircraft Flown: C150, C172, C182 (Safety Pilot), Cub

New Airports: LIH, ISZ, HAO, PMH, HOC, OZW, 45G, DET, BTL, 2H4, OEB

New States: Hawaii

First Flights: 5 (Jessica, Rob, RosaLia + John, and Jamie)

People Flown: 8 (above, plus Rob, Jon, and Gina)

$100 Burgers: 5 (Sporty's in May, Portsmouth and Urbana in August, and WMU's Pancake Breakfast and Urbana again in September)

Fly-Ins: 3 (MERFI in August and WMU + Triple H in September)

Pilots N Paws Flights: 1 (July)

What I'll Remember: Flying completely around the island of Kauai in April. Taking the 172 up to Michigan to visit family, land at my childhood airports, and fly past downtown Detroit in August. Heading back up to Michigan with Gina the very next weekend, flying over WMU's campus (our alma mater) and getting hit with a laser on our way home. Finally logging a bit of right-seat time as a safety pilot for Mike in the 182. Landing at Blue Ash before the airport closed for good this summer. Crossing the 250-hour mark (barely) on my final flight of the year.

2012 Goals: Log time in the Stearman, log stick time in a glider, take some of our friends flying, keep the blog more active than I have over the past six months.

^ Uh, well it's good to bat .500, right? I need to get better about working towards my goals, which leads me to...

2013 Goals: Start and complete my Instrument and Commercial ratings. Yup, you read that right. Woo boy, I'm gonna be busy, eh? Here's the thing - I know I want to get them, I've put both off for far too long, and I sure as heck want them done before we have kids if at all possible. The ultimate goal is getting my CFI/II, but doing all of that this year would be extremely hard, if not impossible. Maybe in 2014. I'd also still like to log some Stearman time, get checked out in the Taylorcraft, and maybe finally take that elusive glider flight.

So it's time to get my ass in gear and hop back onto the flight training bandwagon. A lofty goal? No doubt about it. It's time to challenge myself, learn something new, and improve my skills. I intend to recap every lesson just as I did when working on my Private, so expect a significant bump in activity around here!

One final note - this post is my 300th on the blog. Not too bad in just over 4 1/2 years, huh?