Getting my head round it all.

Those of you who follow this blog will know that Sunday was the day I was meant to start my epic planned “Mission”

You may have also noticed that the blog has been strangely quiet on the whole matter. I mean there haven’t been any triumphant “Mission accomplished” posts or any bitching about the weather either.

So what’s up?

Well the truth is it didn’t go exactly according to plan, which I don’t necessarily have a problem writing about but I started writing this post about 3 times now and tailed off. Not really knowing where to take it.

Which means I didn’t have my thoughts straight in my head yet.  I’m good at writing reflective stuff but only once I’ve got some finality in what it is I’ve learned.

Two days later and I think I’m coming to terms with it all.

Let me explain.

On paper the aim of the flight was to head out to the east, then north to Uxbridge and see if I could find Greenbank airport. A grass strip where I first learnt the dark art of the precautionary and indeed a softfield landing.

Of course the grass nature would mean that I couldn’t actually land, the flight school’s insurance won’t let me take it on anything other than a paved surface. But I’d planned a low and over and considered that close enough.

In my head the flight had a different purpose. I wanted to show off to RTH. I wanted him to see that in the last two years or so, I’ve become a different person in that cockpit. A safe, calm, competent and confident pilot.

Long story short, that didn’t happen.

To cut to the chase, the following things happened:

1)      I got flustered by some traffic on the way out of the zone and got fixated on overtaking them

2)      I got confused by the traffic at Greenbank using what I considered to be the wrong runway, this threw off my spatial awareness and I got hopelessly confused trying to join a right hand circuit. I ended up calling it off.

3)      The approach to 08 over the city stressed me out a little

4)      I finished as I started – with a less than stellar landing. Nothing dangerous, just “firm”

Please don’t misunderstand – I didn’t do anything dangerous, it just didn’t go according to either plan. And for a little while that left me a little disheartened and a little p!ssed off with myself.

But over the next couple of posts I’ll explain exactly what went wrong and why I’m kind of ok with it now.

Rules of engagement

The weather is looking just perfect, sun, no precipitation forecast, winds due to swing around to right down the runway. A great day to go flying.

This was going to be my second flight since getting my license and my first with RTH as my passenger. To be honest I was probably more nervous with him on board than I was with K and M.

RTH and I are blessed with the kind of relationship where we actually talk to each other and we knew that this situation had the potential to cause all kinds of interesting issues. So we’ve agreed on some “Rules of Engagement” in the hope that we can pre-empt some of these concerns.

I have no doubt that this list will grow as we encounter new situations, but the list looks like this for the moment

·         Each flight will have one person designated as PIC, they may want the other person to help out with any tasks such as navigating etc but they are PIC

·         The PIC makes all decisions with regard to go/no go decisions on the ground and in the air

·         On hearing “go around”, whoever is flying does exactly that, we discuss why  once we are back at a stable flying level.*

·         There is to be no taking of the controls – at least not without mutual consent and positive handover (I have control etc.)

Hopefully this will be good enough to keep us safe in the air and speaking on the ground.

* This kind of happened to RTH when he was flying with another pilot. RTH was the passenger, on landing he saw some power lines that he wasn’t sure if the pilot had. He called out “power!” The other pilot apparently executed a flawless go around and they came back for another try! Good observation on RTH’s part and awesome flying from the other pilot in that he didn’t ask what or why, just did it and then had the discussion!

Weather permitting

“The Mission” starts tomorrow.

Got an interesting first airport picked out and RTH on board for the first time!

Can’t wait!

New Blog, Old Blog

In a flash of burning inspiration it came to me; The Mission deserves a blog all to itself.

And so in the blink of an eye one was created!

It is here.

Basically that blog will be purely dedicated to my “mission” posts.  The remainder of my mental meanderings will remain right here.

Don’t worry about missing anything, anytime I post something to The Mission, I’ll let you know here. 

Lost in Translation

My boss is working with the Principal of a school In Quebec. Said principal’s assistant and I need to correspond occasionally via email.

She doesn’t speak English and my French, well it isn’t what it used to be; my "business French" even more so. In truth we are corresponding via the medium of Google Translate at the moment.

It is ……… interesting to say the least.

New beginnings

One of the more subtle changes you may have spotted is that I’ve retired WMAP. It is true that I started this blog as the “World’s Most Anxious Person” and at the time it was very apt.

Getting into a plane was a high stress activity for me, flying one was inconceivable at this point.

But as we all know, eventually it happened and I ended up with a shiny new PPL licence. I’ve made good command decisions in the plane and am simply not the person who started out on this journey anymore.

So WMAP needed to go. Besides, I rather like the persona of LocalFlightEast that I’ve created. She’s going to stick around for a while.

WMAP started this blog, but it was very definitely LFE who passed her flight test!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I’m playing around with some stuff on the blog. Making a few tweaks here and there, seeing what works and what doesn’t.

It may be a tad temperamental for a day or so, while I work out the kinks.

Rest assured that I’ve come to the decision to keep on with this blog as it is but watch this space for an exciting new enterprise from LocalFlightEast.

Possibly

Maybe.