Bumpy flight today, gusty winds from the North stir up all kinds of
turbulence. I still don’t like flying through the stuff, although Bob was quick
to point out that although I’m still not 100% happy in it, I’m worlds away from
how I used to react. Now I may be loud but I suck it up and fly through it. I
will admit to getting minorly freaked out by low level manoeuvres today. We
were practicing the 360° approach to forced landings. The winds got gustier the
closer to the ground you got. I was not a happy bunny to put it mildly. I
tolerated Bobs demo but got nervous when it came to my turn to have a go. I politely
bowed out. I was really conscious of the fact that we could have easily got
caught by a gust of wind and clipped a wing on a hedgerow or something on the
way down.
I’m aware that if you are actually doing a forced approach then you
can’t pick and choose the weather, but today I did have that luxury, so I
exercised it. I just didn’t want to be in a situation where I was going to be
genuinely worried about crashing. In our debrief Bob reckoned I made the right
call.
The flight conditions make a huge difference to how I manage, today
I was back to being at my limits workload-wise. It was very noticeable. As
usual the first skill I lose is my ability to form coherent sentences, hence my
radio work suffers. Although this is a tad frustrating, I’m not unduly worried.
I’ve been here before and gotten through it. It’s just going to take time and I’m
fine with that.
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