Freedom.

A couple of people have made similar comments to me recently about flying. They all say something along the lines of “You must get an amazing sense of freedom when you are up there.”

Funnily enough, I kind of don’t really. Please don’t misunderstand me, I enjoy flying a great deal but when I’m flying on my own I really don’t have time to stop and smell the roses as it were.

Non flying people don’t realise that it isn’t like driving; you don’t just sit there and watch the world go by, you have to fly the plane, monitor your instruments, keep a listen out for radio chatter, and keep an eye out for traffic. Unlike the road, you can’t predict what direction it might come from either. One extra dimension equals a massive increase of workload.

Although I feel an amazing sense of achievement when I fly solo, I don’t really recall feeling a sense of freedom. On the contrary what I feel is an overwhelming sense of responsibility. I am totally in charge of the plane and all decisions rest on my shoulders.

While it is probably admirable that I take my responsibilities seriously, I feel that maybe I ought to lighten up just a tad.

I’ve got a solo lesson coming up, Bob offered me the option of a solo or dual, learning opportunities a plenty in both options. I hesitated for a while and finally succumbed to the inevitable. I need to build up that solo time.

So I have a new goal. As well as fully accomplishing the slow flight, steep turns and stalls. I want to be free. While I want to focus on what I need to do, I also want to lose the pressing leaden mass that sits on my chest and stomach.

If nothing else, it can’t be good for the weight and balance sheet!

The other F word

Today’s flight was liberally punctuated with the F word. No not that one, although I can understand why your mind would go there. The F word of the day was “Flight Test.”

Bob’s been dropping it into the conversation recently, possibly to gauge my reaction. Especially considering that when I was gearing up to my solo flight, I banned all usage of the “S” word anywhere near me.

The truth is though, I’m OK with it. I let myself think about it now, in contrast to my first solo where I was in strict denial for a long time. I told Bob today that I regularly review the flight test standards for the work that we plan on doing. Something which he was happy to hear.

I’m OK allowing myself to think about what it is I actually need to achieve in order to have a hope in hell of passing. I’m OK with the fact that I’m not there yet.

I have goals, I have things I’m looking forward to. I suspect I have bumps along the road yet to encounter. I’m probably going to get lost, bewildered, confused and probably scared. And yet I know I’m going to be excited beyond belief as well, just like I currently am.

First find your plane!

Always a little embarrassing when you stride confidently out to the apron; flight bag on your shoulder, clipboard in one hand, cushions in the other and realise that you can’t find your plane!

Usually in the summer most of the planes are out on the apron, for some reason today JES was still in the hanger. Once I’d located and preflighted her, I went to get Bob to query a dodgy fuel gauge. Despite the tank being brimmed full; the gauge was showing zero fuel. Apparently this isn’t uncommon when the tank is over full. Good to know for future reference.

While we were shuffling planes around in the hanger, Bob and I were joking around. He made some kind of  comment that I chose to take mock-offence at. “Remember,” I pointed out “I don’t need you in the plane anymore. I’d watch myself up there if I were you!”

As Bob went to get in the plane it took me a minute to realise I hadn’t released the latch on his side, meaning he couldn’t get in. “See I told you I didn’t need you in here,” I joked!

Don’t mess with WMAP the pilot!

A confession.

I have a confession to make, one I thought I could get away with but I got unexpectedly “outed”.

When I fly solo, I’m not really on my own. I always fly with Bob on board.

No, not instructor Bob, this “Bob”

He was sent over by my family a while back and has accompanied me on most flights since. He sits in the side pocket of my flight bag. When I’m flying solo he peeks out the top. I thought I’d got away with it but on my last solo to Claremont “Instructor Bob” happened to stick his head in the passenger side and notice, “hey, who’s your flying buddy?” he asked.

I went a delicate shade of pink and replied through gritted teeth “it is entirely possible you were never EVER meant to see that!”

A girl has a reputation to maintain, after all!

That was fun

Icky weather today, low cloud base, changeable visibility and the airspace closing at midday for the Labour Day airshow.

It became readily apparent that the planned local east flight (dual or solo) wasn’t going to happen. I wanted to fly though. Bob is very respectful of both my time and money and likes to a) give me options and b) try to accomplish something meaningful each lesson.

After some discussion today and a quick peak at the local cloud base measurer (aka the CN tower*) we decided that the conditions were really only conducive to circuits. To make it a useful session we decided to concentrate on speciality takeoffs and landings; short field and obstacle landings especially. A check in my PTR confirmed that it has been a while since we last looked at these.

The flight was a challenge, muscle memory hazy from techniques taught while I was still fumbling my way through the circuit. Having said that though it was a good challenge. I relished the opportunity to push myself. I felt in control but on the edge if that’s not a contradiction. It was satisfying in all kinds of ways.

I felt so much confidence in myself and faith in my abilities. It wasn’t a straight forward flight. The low cloud base meant that traffic was using the ILS approach, so ground were getting you to hold short at different places than I’m used to. Add to that the fact that I was doing stop and goes with backtracks; I really had to manage myself within the other traffic and spacing. The low and changing cloud base meant I had to think about my circuit altitude. I made the decisions to level off a little earlier sometimes without any input from Bob and a lot of the time without a second thought.

I coped well with unusual ATC instructions, being told to backtrack on 24 but hold short 26 didn’t bother me. I read back the instruction then Bob asked me “do you know where the hold short line for 26 is on 24?”

“Nope,” I replied cheerfully “let’s go and see if we can find it.”

Truthfully I didn’t know exactly where it was but I knew what I was looking for, the hold short lines are actually easier to spot  in lower visibility because they have flashing yellow lights by them. And sure enough there was the line I was looking for.

By the time I got to it though, ATC had  changed their mind and got me to line up on 26 instead.

All part of the fun that was today’s lesson.



*stuff what it says on the METAR, the CN tower is a known height, as are its various observation platforms. By figuring out how much you can see, you can figure out the cloud base to about 100ft accuracy.

The big one

After today’s flight Bob and I grabbed a few minutes to chat while his next student took charge of JES and did their walkround. Today’s flight was good. I was happy and relaxed, although still hot and sweaty (I hate the sticky humidity here).

Now Bob had mentioned cross country flying in passing before. I knew it was next on our list of things to conquer but it is getting VERY close. As I write this post it is the start of September, Bob aims to have me complete the big one, my three-airport-more-than-100NM-qualifying-cross-country flight, by mid-October!

WOW!

That is both a little scary and incredibly exhilarating. I am so psyched for this right now. I know that I’m not there yet but the truly exciting thing is that I feel that I will be. For perhaps the first time in my flying life I reckon I might actually be able to do this.

Bob has absolute faith in me that I’m going to manage this just fine. He was very quick to point out that I have a good handle on numbers; I’m methodical, logical and have good decision making skills. That’s the basics as far as he is concerned. Anything else can be taught.

In my heart I know that the key to all this is going to be having faith in my own planning and not second guessing myself.

The plan is to start looking at this gradually. Starting by just taking out the charts and taking a look, at the route then week by week we will start pulling the planning apart and breaking it down into the steps I’ll need to do for the flight itself.

Eventually the hope is that we find a good weekend and do the flight dual one day and solo the next.

I’m grinning as I write this, going to be fun for sure. Possibly I will do some posts based on the planning and lead up to the flight itself.

Battle postponed.

The weather this long weekend sucks. Either the visibility is Ok but the cloud base low, or decent cloud base but sucky visibility.

Unfamiliar terrain is not the time to try scud running so we’ve postponed our flight to Massachusetts. When we reschedule, I’ll let you all know.