Wow, can’t believe it’s been over a year since my last post! If I had any readers, this is where I would apologize for the long absence. Luckily, I don’t need to worry about that.
Truth is, it’s been a choppy year. I didn’t fly much at all in 2018 — a combination of life happening, weather, scheduling conflicts, etc… I was also getting pretty burned out – I just couldn’t get the hang of the landings in the Piper and it was starting to piss me off. I think my instructor was getting frustrated as well. Everything else was working out great — radio work, plane handling, navigation…everything except for a proper landing.
Finally, one lesson it started to click. Instead of trying to land the plane I thought about just “hovering” above the runway and trying to hold off landing as long as possible. This wasn’t new to me, I’d heard plenty of people say, “try not to land!” but it never really clicked. Now it was finally making it from brain to hands/feet and I had a few decent landings.
Then the universe conspired against me. I wound up taking a few months off after the summer and didn’t fly at all — a combination of plane/CFI scheduling conflicts, family stuff I had to take care of, travel, work, etc… I found I wasn’t really thinking about aviation any more, I had lost the passion. I was actually considering throwing in the towel, but that didn’t sit well with me. One, I’m not a quitter and I don’t like to give up on a challenge. Two, it would be so embarrassing to tell people I had given up and wouldn’t be getting my certificate. Nah, quitting wasn’t an option. So I spent the summer learning how to operate a power boat and stayed out of the air for a bit.
Last week I had some time off of work so I booked multiple lessons with my CFI. I was worried I would be crazy rusty, but it was encouraging how quickly I got back into it. I made some mistakes but all small stuff, nothing major. Unfortunately my first lesson back had some wicked crosswinds and gusts so we worked on a couple landings and called it a day. I was hoping that the glimmer of hope from my last lesson would carry over, and it did — even though my landings weren’t great due to the crosswinds, my rollout/flare technique was much better.
The following day was my birthday and was much nicer. We went out and did a bunch of touch-and-gos and I was nailing it! FINALLY! I could land the @#^$*%# plane!! I thought a solo might be in my future and thought how cool it would be to solo on my birthday. Alas, it was not to be that day. We landed and my instructor told me he’d solo me on our next lesson (assuming I performed as well as I had during this lesson).
The next day we flew again — however my friend the wind was back and it was too gusty for soloing. We practiced some crosswind stuff and came back home.
I had a couple days of bad weather and then everything aligned — high viz and moderate (~6kts) wind. We went up for a few laps and then it happened — my instructor told me to drop him off and go have fun.
I have to say, the second solo was just as exciting as the first time. I was in a different plane in a different airport and it felt like I had leveled up from the first solo. Also, all the extra hours I had put in had really solidified my plane handling — where before I struggled to hold an altitude or heading, now that stuff was (for the most part) automatic. I was beginning to get a feel for the airplane, able to feel when something needed tweaking before it got out of hand. Of course, I’m still a damn newb and have a lot to learn, it’s just that I feel so much more in control than the first time I soloed.
So I did three laps around the pattern with three very good landings (ok, ok, one I ballooned a teensy bit but I saved it and did not slam the plane or hit the nosewheel on any of them).
The best part was the sense that I am making forward progress again — this has totally rekindled the passion I have for flying and now I can’t wait until my next lessons! The plan is to solo me at KPOU and KHVN and then I’ll be able to fly to those airports on my own. I’m really looking forward to that — I won’t have to coordinate scheduling with my CFI for every flight (and won’t have to pay him for my solo flights either!)
After that the last real big challenge is the cross-country stuff. I still have some other items to check off the requirements list (night flight, simulated instrument, etc…) but I assume we’ll knock those off as we prepare for the cross-country.