I know what that means

I have many talents, some of them useful, others not so much. I’m really good at speed reading for example. I can scan and get the gist of an entire document before most people have gotten past the second line. This is a useful skill.  My ability to obsess over inconsequential stuff isn’t. Ok it might mean that stuff I organise tends to run without too many problems, but it is not always as useful as you'd think.

I obsess over everything. I can read meaning into even the most innocuous statement. Which brings us nicely to my next planned flying lesson. I will admit I am experiencing a high level of anxiety about this one. I have that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I haven’t felt in a while. Maybe it is the dreaded stalls that I know we plan to do. I’ve never really been a fan of those, especially the power on variety. I hate the anticipation more than the actual stall itself, but that nose goes so high and it really is not pleasant in my opinion. I know how to recover from them and everything, it isn’t actually that difficult and now that I have that much more flying experience under my belt it is almost instinctive, stall horn = nose down.

Maybe it’s the thought of being out in that practice area with all the radio chatter that I’m struggling with, maybe it is the marginal weather. But maybe, just maybe it was a little line in a text message from Bob last night.

We were discussing our flying plans. My preflight brief usually starts a day or so before the flight, with Bob giving me a rough idea of what we are going to cover. This gives me time to read up on the stuff I should know beforehand. Sometimes it gives me an idea of how the lesson is likely to go, other times; when Bob throws one of his random surprises at me, not so much.

This text message chain started off as usual, a discussion of meeting times,  a list of the items we intend to cover (split over two separate texts, it’s going to be a busy one!). This is followed by the inevitable silly/flippant comment from me. And then the killer statement from Bob, “Some map reading, nothing fancy. Get us to the practice area. Pretend like I’m not there.”

<gulp>

Because I know what that means.

Soon he’s not going to be

Crap.

Haven’t felt this level of anxiety since I was on the run up to my solo.