Scrappy but passable.

“Scrappy” is a word I wish I’d never taught Bob!

But now that I have he seems to delight in using it to describe my flying!

I guess I wouldn’t mind so much if he wasn’t using it correctly. But he is. And the title of this post is probably a fair assessment of some of my airwork today.

I’m not unduly concerned, seeing as the emphasis was more on the “passable” than the “scrappy”. In other words I’m doing what I need to do, but it could be more polished.

An example was my practice precautionary landing today, Once I’d picked my field (I’m getting really good at picking decent fields now, mainly because I’m taking the time to properly evaluate what’s around me), I set up to pick up the “downwind” in order to do a high pass.

I realise that I’ve done something silly. I set up on a right hand circuit, the field is on my passengers side, unhelpfully blocked from my view by Bob himself.

“Well that was stupid!” I say out loud, verbalising what I’ve done, “I set up for the pass on the wrong side.”

“So fix it.” Suggests Bob.

With a shrug I realise he’s right. I have time within the scenario he’s set me. I have engine power. I loop overhead the field and set up on the correct side.

In a flight test situation, I’d probably have gotten away with it. I carried out the exercise within the tolerances, even if I did mess up originally.

And this is the point I’ve been trying to get my head around. I can make mistakes and it isn’t the end of the world.

A pilot who can go “oops, maybe that wasn’t the best call, let’s do this instead” is a much safer bet than one who either doesn’t notice that they’ve made a bad choice or tries to carry on and compound the error.

Whilst I agree with Bob’s “scrappy but passable” verdict on some of my flying today. I’d love to eliminate the “scrappy” from it!