Stop jinxing us Bob!

Two things today that I rest the blame squarely on Bob’s shoulders. In reverse order, we started off a fairly innocuous conversation on the way back from the practice area. Basically a “what if you couldn’t get through to tower on the radio for whatever reason, could you still enter the zone?” discussion.  Now I know that the airspace around City is class C, so I also know that I need prior permission to enter.  I correctly surmised that if I wasn’t able to get that permission then I’d have to orbit until I could get through.

Sod’s law then, guess what happened on the way back into the zone? Yep ATC had someone with a stuck mike or something going on. Anyways they weren’t interested in talking to me, not even acknowledging my calls.  So we circled for a bit before they deigned to speak to me. Weird huh ? Straight after our what-if conversation.

The first thing that I was less than impressed with was when, just before I was about to fire her up, Bob suddenly gasped sharply. In a kind of "OMG we're all going to die way*" When urgently quizzed as to what was wrong he said “I think I forgot to write the exercise numbers on the flight sheet.”

REALLY? THAT’S IT? I very quickly pointed out that was a noise, no student pilot EVER wanted to hear in the cockpit!! Especially from their instructor! Don’t do that to me! That’s a BAD sound! Instructors have a duty not to scare (however temporarily) the living bejesus out of their students**! This was all said while laughing out loud but it’s a good job I was wearing my kneeboard at this point. If I’d had it loose then, and to quote E from work, I would “have slapped him upside the head with it”!

 

* I may be exaggerating slightly here but not by much!

**  I have it on reliable authority that flight instructors are specially trained during times of high stress in flight only to sweat on the right side of their face!