Fearless

Yesterday was, to be honest, a complete clusterf#ck of a flight. Really nothing much of what I attempted went right and yet I’m actually sitting here reasonably happy with how things went.

“Huh?” I hear you asking. What can she mean?

Yes it’s true that my steep turns were either not steep or were all over the place altitude wise. My forced approaches useless as time again I just lost sight of the damn field and failed miserably

But, and this is the big one. My attitude was so different. Rather than being panicky or scared and doing something stupid, I was just, well irritated really. Rather than being too scared to attempt anything out there, I gave it a shot but was wise enough to realise when it just wasn’t working out and it was time to call it a day.

On the way back ATC gave me the usual hard time about needing the right downwind for 08, telling me to that they were probably going to need me to orbit. And then dithering about whether they wanted me north or south of the stacks. Eventually they very helpfully cleared me “<mumble> ..th of the stacks.” Leading me to ask “say again, was that north or south of the stacks?” They promptly ignored me and thus got a slightly more forceful “City tower this is GSAR, say again was that north or south of the stacks?”

I got a slightly more forceful reply, I ignored the snotty undertones and gave them my most clear and precise readback voice, the inherent undertone here being “I’m not the one with the enunciation problem, pal”

Of course then I blew my cool, calm, “I’m a professional” façade by taking three sodding attempts to get it on the runway.

Really though it’s all good, sh!t goes wrong up there and I deal with it. Not quite fearless , but getting close.