Building confidence

Although my solo flying is a little scrappy at the moment and more than a little nerve-wracking it is playing an important role in boosting my confidence, and so is Bob. It’s amazing how he can give me that confidence without actually being there.

Some of it comes from the preflight briefing, even casual throw away comments like “so just remember to make your position calls, but you won’t have a problem with that. Your radio work is good and just keep a listen out for other traffic, again not a problem for you and yeah just have fun!”

The fact that Bob isn’t concerned makes me feel that I shouldn’t be either. He also asks good questions about the flight afterwards. I’m very quick to give him the low down on the stuff I didn’t do or found tricky. Bob’s quick to ask me about the stuff that went well.

For instance today I was having problems with slow flight. It was a little bumpy over Claremont, the chop made trimming for slow flight tricky. I kind of managed it but the stall horn wasn’t really kicking in too much “maybe more medium than slow flight” I confessed to Bob. He asked me about the trip out and back “how was the navigation?”

I looked at him for a moment, not really understanding why he was asking this. “Fine” I said dismissively “I can get to Claremont and back, no problems.” And then I realised what I’d just said. It is totally true. In three flights I’ve gone from stressing about losing my way to navigating there and back without a second thought.

Jeez that’s massive! Seriously.