Back to basics

Sometimes you simply need to put things back to their proper priority. These past few months it has been family and career. Both of these once again have shoved the flight training to the back burner. Aside from this - the weather has been brutal out here.

My wife definitely has noticed the fact that I had stopped flying and was actually the one who suggested I book some flying time on a weekend so that I don't "lose my touch". Apparently she is starting to come around to how important this actually is to me. In fact she did tell me recently that she would be happy to be my first passenger when I complete the license. In the past she had told me outright that she would never fly in a little plane with me. How's that for a curve ball? I think it has something to do with the amount of time I've spent studying and reading. Nice.

While I haven't been in the air these past few months - I have been spending a bunch of time doing something constructive towards gaining knowledge and the goal of getting my license. First, I renewed my online ground school subscription. My plan is to spend 8 hours a week focused on this, which is close to the amount of time I would spend if I were in ground school. Second, I purchased a copy of Rod Machado's private pilot handbook. An actual copy of the book and an MP3 version. I haven't really cracked the book open yet aside from a cursory look but I'm about 75% through the entire audio. I have really enjoyed listening to it while "waiting" to do anything (I have it on my blackberry) and especially while exercising. I've listened to the weather section twice now and my eyes are still rolling to the back of my head due to information overload. While there certainly are some sections of Rod's book that aren't applicable to me (FARs and airspace class specifically) I've found his style to be exactly what I need. Even the cheezie jokes make my smile. I'm such an aviation nerd now.

They told me that the flight would be "back to basics" - out to the practice area for steep turns, slow flight, and stalls. I5 was very happy to see me and wondered where I had disappeared to. He said that if I nailed things we'd be back where we left off. I didn't have a problem with that at all. He actually seemed somewhat "excited" about flying with me again - more on that later.

Even climbing into the aircraft felt sort of weird. The checklist was the first smell of familiarity for me. Got her started up and made my ground call while still taxiing on the club ramp, so there wasn't any transition. There was a bit of a traffic jam during the taxi out and while I5 kept quiet during it I was constantly saying aloud what I thought ground was doing and who was who. After we passed that I5 said that he had forgotten about my situational awareness thing.

Anyhow - the safety brief went as if I had flown a day ago, before I knew it we were rolling down the runway and taking to the sky. No jerky movements, uncertainty, or tentative action on the right rudder. Swap the frequency, flaps up, pump off, 75 knots and we're on our way.

We had a sweet tailwind and cruised into the practice area. The terrain there causes a lot more mech turbulence so we climbed up to 9000' where it was nice and smooth. He had me do a couple of basic stuff on the way up to 9000 - a few level offs - some climbing turns, etc. All went well. Then he asked if I wanted him to demonstrate a steep turn - I said nope, let's do it. We did 4 of them. My first was my worst and still managed to pass flight test standards.

From there we moved into slow flight. It certainly wasn't as good as the last time I had flown, but once I got through the entry it was obvious that I had no issues. We did two quick stalls on the way back and I demonstrated a sweet forward slip while paralleling a road. He had me at a certain speed in the descent (we were headed from 8500 to 6000) and mid way had me exit the slip and re-enter with reversed inputs.

The flight back was great - I kept the speed up for some separation from a Skyhawk behind me and when I was cleared down to 5k I told I5 that I won't adjust the power and will keep the speed up. This was a lot of fun. Our indicated speed was 145. I can't remember the ground speed, but I do recall I5 letting out a yahoo ;).

The circuit was moderately busy and I had a bit of a brain fart. For some reason got a bit discombobulated (spell check revealed this to be an actual word - go figure) and thought I was on base for landing runway 16 when I was actually on downwind for 25. No clue why that happened. Tower cleared me to land on the base and after he reported winds 12G18 I immediately told I5 that we'd make the approach for 63 knots. By either some serious concentration or the luck of the Irish (which I'm not) - I managed to shoot my most stable approach to date. I was bang on 63 for the entire approach, barely a power change required, and was trimmed nicely. I put it right down on the center line and held things together even with a weird gust that brought the left wing up. Weird, weird, weird. I can't explain it to be honest, but I'm concerned that perhaps I think I'm better at landing than I actually am. Would be great to get some serious minute critique from someone on this one day.

During the debrief was when I5 gave me a real compliment. He said he had forgotten how focused and prepared I am. Not understanding what he meant, I started talking about all of the things where I thought I was rusty. This is when he mentioned that during the flight we just had, my first in 3 months - I had executed better than all of the students he had been with that week, many of whom were flying multiple times/week at points in their training more advanced. Wow. I was blown away.

It felt great. The airplane felt like home. It was great to be back in the skies too. There was a super high ceiling, but it was blue sky over the mountains which in the cold (-5C) were clear, white with snow, and spectacular (at some point I put two and two together, realizing that the forecast was for 12C tomorrow with high winds, I then recognized the high overcast layer that arched over the mountains was the start of a "Chinook". Lucky I was down before the winds picked up).

Ya baby, I'm back.