Tipping the scales

My flying is a fine blend of fear and desperation to do well. For all kinds of reasons, once I set out to do something, I want to do it well. Good enough rarely is for me.

I’m balancing the genuine fear of flying with the fear of failure.  Problem is, there is rarely such a thing as a perfect flight. I’m always left with a vague sense of dissatisfaction. I can’t decide what’s worse solo flying or having Bob on board. When Bob’s there the debrief goes a lot more smoothly because he’s always seeing positives that I don’t, little things that I do well that I don’t even notice anymore. But, with the instructor comes added pressures. I care what people think. I care about the impression I leave. I would love to have a flight where I genuinely impress Bob, where I get the stuff right, where I don’t swear and curse and throw my hands up in frustration.  One where I know what I’m doing, where I don’t get snippy with him when he’s trying to help.

It’s not happened yet.

My desperation to do well, to progress can help sometimes. It’s what got me out to the practice area solo, despite that feeling in the pit of my stomach. The desire outweighed the fear.

I’m not quite at that point with my cross country yet. I mean I want to do it, I know that the feeling I’ll get when I land after finally completing that sucker will probably keep me airborne for weeks after. But at the moment the scales are just tipping the wrong way, the fear winning slightly.

I have a dual flight with Bob coming up this weekend, possibly final prep before the big one. I just know that he’s going to throw whatever he can my way, probably everything short of a zombie apocalypse. I want to get it right because I want to tip the scales back the other way.

I’m not all that hopeful though. We’ll see how it goes I guess.