My Personal Proficiency Check

In the fall of 2023, my wife and I decided that we were going to venture to a small airport for lunch one Saturday. When I did some research on the airport, I discovered that the runway is only about 2,700ft. long. That would have been the shortest runway I had ever landed on before. While I had plenty of practice with short-field landings, they were always simulated. In fact, I get kind of spoiled in my area because my home airport, as well as most of the surrounding airports I regularly fly to, all have rather long runways (5,000ft+). So, I decided to take a solo flight one weekday afternoon with the sole purpose of practicing my short field takeoffs and landings. I knew I could do them as I had done them for my checkride, but it had been awhile. I decided to stay in the traffic pattern for a few laps, then went to PYG for some real-world short field landings. They went just fine, and I was able to “hit my mark” each time. Once touching down, I followed the procedures of full back-pressure on the elevator for aerodynamic braking, and apply pedal brake pressure. I felt comfortable performing these landings and it renewed my “personal” proficiency check. Sometimes I will perform maneuvers and landings just for the sake of staying proficient, as one should. However, I think many pilots can sometimes see maneuvers as something you just do in order to pass a test, and never do them again. I, like others, never want to get complacent, and that was the purpose of this flight.