24.1 logged flight hours! Since lesson 13, we’ve worked on: take-off and landings; pattern work; engine out procedure; more s-turns; more slow flight; more steep turns; emergency descent; and power off stalls. And great googly moogly at where all of this has taken me mentally.
One thing is for sure: I am exponentially more confident in the aircraft than I’ve ever been. BUT. Especially after today’s flight lesson, I’ve realized that the more I learn, the more there is left to learn.
It wasn’t until my last lesson that certain concepts or movements actually started to click for me.
And as much as I love to fly, it’s is expensive to learn (and worth every penny) so both my instructor and I knew it was time to start kicking me out of the comfortable little bird’s nest I had built for myself; I was relying too much on him to verbally prompt and walk me through every single maneuver, which obviously boosted my confidence tremendously, but it just won’t get me to where I need to be. Alex gave me a friendly head’s up that he will be taking a more passive role in our next lesson (today’s) and I set a plan for myself and began studying. My goal was to complete the following maneuvers in order: take-off, slow flight, power-off stalls (a maneuver I’d never forced myself to fully take the reins on), recovery into normal flight, steep turns, s-turns, emergency procedures/descent/landing, and finally landing.
Beginning with a review ground lesson, I verbally walked him through my desired maneuvers and he corrected where necessary. I pre-flighted, we took off, and then my brain started braining in a way that my brain does.
I immediately caught myself attempting to ask Alex if the tweaks I wanted to make while in slow flight were correct and he simply responded, “I don’t know. Is that what you do?” “Got it,” I thought. I needed to be more confident and comfortable in my ability to troubleshoot and adjust so I did and he continued to correct where necessary. And then I heard the dreaded words, “power-off stall” and I hit the mental block that would accompany me for the rest of the flight.
Overall, my power off stall is extremely clumsy and, at some point, I became deathly afraid of the throttle and pitching the plane again. While Alex had to fully assist with inducing the stall, on the second attempt, I did break it quickly and I was extremely happy it didn’t end in a spin, ha. Every movement after that felt big and scary and I could sense a bit of regression occurring.
Regarding regression: I expected these and, honestly, even welcome them. I certainly have end-stage perfectionism but even I know regression is a sign of growth and more opportunities to advance by way of diving deeper than before in an endless world of aviation knowledge that exists.
In the end, the flight lesson was so adrenaline-inducing, I’d soaked my shirt with sweat and realized I’d completely forgotten steep turns. However, the adrenaline rush felt like a sign of being challenged in a way that was needed and it was refreshing to know I was pushing myself alongside a more-than-competent instructor.
My debrief with my instructor was full of honesty and encouragement. (This is probably the most important part of any flight lesson.) It was also reaffirming at how much in a hurry I’m not. I even caught myself before I asked where other students typically are at this point in their aviation journey and I refused to ask because, ultimately, I’m happy and proud of where I am. And, in re-evaluation of today’s lesson, I’m more dedicated to this journey than ever before. Like, come on. I have 24.1 whole flight hours!
Enjoy a free little configuration cheat sheet I found somewhere on the internet that helped me “study” for today’s lesson.
And, rest assured, my next several lessons will be spent relearning how to fly the plane (lol) and perfecting power-off stalls until I’m nauseated from confidence.
As a “thank you” for reading, use “greatgooglymoogly24” for $50 off your next booked session with me, commercial or private!
Scattered throughout are just some of my favorite things about this beautiful place we call the Golden Isles!
