Not pretty.

As I’ve mentioned before, last flight I made a conscious decision to just simply focus on what I needed to do. The instrument work in particular frustrates me. The trouble with frustration though, is that it consumes mental energy. Mental energy that, quite frankly, I don’t have to spare at the moment.

So I needed to push out the frustration and replace it with something else, something productive. Taking a long hard look at what my worst faults are, I tried to think of a way to redirect them into something useful.

I like the sound of my own voice; I come out with inane crap to cover my nerves. So let’s say something useful instead.

I kept up a constant commentary of what I needed to do. Bob’d tell me to follow a specific heading and/or altitude and I’d talk myself through it out loud.

It went something like this

Maintain heading 210

Bring her round to the left
Small bank angle only, wait for it to come round, patience

Watch the altitude, bring the nose down

Roll out at the heading

Level the wings

Altitude is good

Keep the heading 210, slight correction to the right

Level the wings

Watch the altitude

Recover that lost height

Level the wings

Small corrections WMAP

Keep the heading

Altitude is good

And so on…….

Probably for a solid 15 minutes.

I don’t think for a minute it was pretty or particularly nice to listen to, but IT WORKED!

I didn’t rush the course changes. I managed climbs and descents under the hood (I think technically that’s beyond the PPL skills). I was super focused. I was in my own little “under-the-foggles” world. 

Somehow verbalising all the stuff stopped me fixating on the one instrument, it forced me into the selective scan technique that’s the key to success here.

Next stage will be to tone it down a little bit, more for the sanity of the people around me, But I think I’ve got this sorted now.