Not the sensitive type.

There couldn’t be a better description of me; I’m certainly not the sensitive type for sure.

In life this has generally been a good thing. I’m not easily daunted or upset. I am easily p!ssed off but that’s another story. I am not easily offended, I hope this makes me an easy person to be around. I don’t do subtle niceties though, I much prefer people to tell it like it is and not dance about issues.

Unfortunately my lack of sensitivity has consequences. As well as suffering from terminal “foot in mouth” syndrome, it actually has physical manifestations. And it is affecting one of the manoeuvres I have to do for my flight test.

As well as a “normal” takeoff, I’m also going to be asked to demonstrate a “speciality” take off,either a short or soft field one. They have slightly differing techniques but a key factor is identifying when the wheels have left the ground and then keeping the plane in ground effect to accelerate.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this flying stuff, basically the wheels come off the ground and you don’t let the plane climb, you keep the nose just low enough so it accelerates, but not so low that you ding the prop.

Yes it is as icky as it sounds.

And here lies my problem.

My complete lack of sensitivity.

 I can’t actually feel when the plane leaves the ground.

I’m never 100% sure of the exact moment when my wheels lose contact with Terra Firma. This means that I either leave it too long and the plane gets stupidly nose high avec stall horn accompaniment in the back ground or I push forward too soon and try to dig the nosewheel into the ground.

It’s an issue, and I’m not 100% what is causing it.

It could be that I’m just oblivious to my surroundings (it’s been known) and I’m never going to get over this.

It may be that a pilot flies by the seat of his (or her) pants and I happen to have many layers of padding between mine and the seat (cushions, I don’t know what you were thinking!!) dulling those sensations.

It might be the artificialness of trying soft field technique on a tarmac surface.

Or I could just be a bit rubbish.

Either way I have to figure out how to fix this and I’m just not sure how.