The wind is apparently a very common problem for pilots in central Virginia this time of year. I'm learning this first hand. My past few attempts to fly were unsuccessful due to high wind. Thankfully, I'm becoming somewhat relentless about my scheduling. So even though I wasn't able to fly this past Sunday, I tried today and will again on Wednesday. Hopefully mother nature will respect my tenacity.
My previous lesson, however, was both interesting an unexpected. Shane and I first spent some classroom time going over my progress with the computerized course material. I have software installed on my home computers that shows me videos, gives me tests, and tracks my progress. If you get a question wrong it automatically calls up the corresponding video. What I didn't know, however, was that Shane is able to see all my mistakes. Big Brother is clearly watching.
He was somewhat new to the specific system, so we were mainly just syncing up in terms of what I had been learning via the system and what we've been doing up in the air. Every so often he'd mention that we'd be getting "under the hood" today. I thought to myself, great! I love working on cars and machines. It would be awesome to get my grease monkey groove on with an airplane engine.
Silly me. In aviation terminology a "hood" is a device that limits your vision to only the instruments. It's mainly used to get an IR (instrument rating) but I'm also required to get two or three hours of hooded flying even with my basic license.
So up we went over to the practice area. On went the hood. I felt very much like Luke Skywalker on the Millenium Falcon practicing against the training remote. At first it was a bit disorienting. But then I found myself flying the plane somewhat intuitively using only the instruments. Who says video game skills don't come in handy? We practiced climbs, descents, turns to a specific heading, and combinations of both. I executed the maneuvers almost flawlessly. Yay me. I rule. Even Shane was impressed. He confided that "the hood" is one of those moments that can make or break a new pilot. Seems like I've got the right stuff.
We were having lots of fun so ended up doing a few practice turns around a point and s turns after the hood work then headed home. Then of course the wind picked up. Turning the plane is much harder when the wind is trying to coerce the airframe in an entirely different direction.
As we hit various patches of turbulence, I found myself struggling somewhat to keep coordinated slow flight, altitude in particular. I came in a bit high on final approach so we had to make a pretty quick and steep descent. That's not such a huge problem. But when you finally level out to prevent nose piling into the runway Newtonian physics plays nasty games with your inner ear. At least it did for mine.
Hubris, like training remotes, often dishes out swift reminders.
My previous lesson, however, was both interesting an unexpected. Shane and I first spent some classroom time going over my progress with the computerized course material. I have software installed on my home computers that shows me videos, gives me tests, and tracks my progress. If you get a question wrong it automatically calls up the corresponding video. What I didn't know, however, was that Shane is able to see all my mistakes. Big Brother is clearly watching.
He was somewhat new to the specific system, so we were mainly just syncing up in terms of what I had been learning via the system and what we've been doing up in the air. Every so often he'd mention that we'd be getting "under the hood" today. I thought to myself, great! I love working on cars and machines. It would be awesome to get my grease monkey groove on with an airplane engine.
Silly me. In aviation terminology a "hood" is a device that limits your vision to only the instruments. It's mainly used to get an IR (instrument rating) but I'm also required to get two or three hours of hooded flying even with my basic license.
So up we went over to the practice area. On went the hood. I felt very much like Luke Skywalker on the Millenium Falcon practicing against the training remote. At first it was a bit disorienting. But then I found myself flying the plane somewhat intuitively using only the instruments. Who says video game skills don't come in handy? We practiced climbs, descents, turns to a specific heading, and combinations of both. I executed the maneuvers almost flawlessly. Yay me. I rule. Even Shane was impressed. He confided that "the hood" is one of those moments that can make or break a new pilot. Seems like I've got the right stuff.We were having lots of fun so ended up doing a few practice turns around a point and s turns after the hood work then headed home. Then of course the wind picked up. Turning the plane is much harder when the wind is trying to coerce the airframe in an entirely different direction.
As we hit various patches of turbulence, I found myself struggling somewhat to keep coordinated slow flight, altitude in particular. I came in a bit high on final approach so we had to make a pretty quick and steep descent. That's not such a huge problem. But when you finally level out to prevent nose piling into the runway Newtonian physics plays nasty games with your inner ear. At least it did for mine.
Hubris, like training remotes, often dishes out swift reminders.
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