My pledge as a student.

Today’s flight was pretty much a carbon copy of what we had planned to do last lesson. Notice I say planned. Unfortunately we had to cut my last flight short due to my unhappy desire to revisit my previous meal.

I don’t know whether it was the bumpy conditions, the time spent under the hood, a slightly dicey stomach in general or any combination of the above but I did not feel good.  I tried taking a few deep breaths but midway through an attempt at a forced approach I had to admit to Bob that it wasn’t going to happen. I spent a good few minutes with my face pressed into the cool air vent while Bob reassured me that we’d take it nice and gently back to City.

Eventually I recovered enough to land the plane before expelling the offending stomach contents on the apron.

For today’s lesson I made sure that I’d eaten properly and was adequately hydrated beforehand. I did my stint under the hood and gladly removed it.

“How you doing?” Bob enquired.

I reassured him that I was fine. We carried on, some power on stalls.

“Are you feeling alright?” Bob asked.

Again, I was doing fine. This carried on every couple of manoeuvres. I tried not to let Bob’s over anxious concern bother me.

He’s not in a great position. He needs to check I’m OK without planting the idea in my head that I should be feeling ill. He needs to make sure that I feel comfortable telling him that I’m not doing ok without making a big deal of it. At the same time he doesn’t want to embarrass me.

It has the potential to be a no win situation really. Luckily for him, Bob’s dealing with a student who doesn’t embarrass easily and who isn’t shy in coming forward.

So that we don’t have to broach the subject again, here is my pledge as a student pilot…

… I do solemnly swear that I, WMAP, will inform my instructor at the first signs of impending nausea, and will take the appropriate avoiding action before it becomes an imminent issue.

I was fine this lesson though, must have just been a transient thing.