Contemplating a change
I had another solo scheduled today, but started thinking about the state of my training. In short, I just don’t feel like I’m being given the support I need to complete my training at a pace I feel comfortable with. In other words, Richard is too busy to answer questions on the phone when I have just one or two, and would rather answer them during a ground school session ($30/hour) instead.
So it got me thinking about what I might do. It then occurred to me that given my current time situation (more busy during the week) and the fact that daylight savings time is here, Kent was now a possibility again. I never had a problem with Kent’s instruction in the first place – it was mainly about the fact that he couldn’t do it during the week. I gave him a call and asked if he wanted to fly with me to check my progress. I had the plane scheduled at 5:00, but he couldn’t make it until 6:00, so I figured I go do some solo work anyway.
Pretty routine by myself – with one exception. On my first trip around the pattern, I was told to follow a Cherokee TURNING final while I was just about to turn base. I looked for him, and saw him ON final, no factor for me at all. I gave him a little extra room, and then turned base. Getting set up for landing, I noticed something strange – another Cherokee about 1 mile in front of me and 300 feet below me! It was a DIFFERENT plane! Just as I got ready to go around, the tower told me to turn left back to the downwind for separation. She may have thought it was her fault, but I’m sure it was mine. Threw off my landing too – had to go around anyway when I found myself 300′ above the threshold.
Came back and got Kent. We flew out to the practice area, did some stalls, slow flight, tracking a VOR, emergency procedures, steep turns, etc. Came back and did a few landings, including a long landing to finish up. This was quite fun. The trick is to come in over the numbers at about 100 knots, round out, bleed off speed until you get to 85 knots, and throw in full flaps. You really have to hold the nose down, but then the plane just settles on the runway, and you save yourself all that taxiing. Cool!
Afterwards we talked, and Kent assigned me a cross country to plan. Gave me all the numbers, and said to call with questions. Much better. Richard is a great instructor, and did a fabulous job of getting me to solo, but it’s time to move on.
1.7 / 39.5 / 3.0