A million thoughts colliding…

… but luckily no planes.

I have a million thoughts going through my head about yesterday’s cross country flight. I have a page of ideas already jotted down for blog posts so hopefully I’ll get round to writing those soon.

The bizarre thing at the moment is although I know there was a LOT on that flight that I could have done better, things I should have known, skills that I have that I should have demonstrated. I’m kind of weirdly optimistic about the whole thing.

Although I didn’t perform flawlessly, there doesn’t seem to be any reason that I can’t do this on my own.  The navigation wasn’t actually as hard as I suspected, although there were times when I was a little unsure of where I was, there are sufficiently large landmarks out there that basic orientation isn’t too challenging.

Even during the times where I really lost it (joining the circuit at Peterborough was problematic), I can sit here now and think “I should just have……..” , so at least I have a plan now.

Now I do need to be very careful though, I need to review enough of my video to help me cope with the sections I found challenging but I need to ensure that I don’t start obsessing over every little thing that I got wrong.

This isn’t a graded exercise. There are no points for perfection. Although I should strive for excellence, the main aim is to get myself and plane back intact, preferably without breaking any regs, or getting in anyone’s way.

I need to keep the big picture in mind, because strangely, during that entire, epic, 3.1 hour flight yesterday, I actually forgot I was flying a plane. I may have been stressing over navigation, radio calls and chasing my heading bug but the fact that I was sat in a tiny tin can plane over a big expanse of nothingness didn’t occur to me at all.