growing pains

The last few days have not been the most pleasant here at pilot training. Things are not going bad but they aren't going the way I would like them. I was supposed to have my checkride today but because of weather yesterday, it got postponed to Monday, then today it got postponed to probably Tuesday because of weather. However, the weather is not my concern. The last few flights, I have had awesome flights overall, but in each one I have made small mental errors that would warrant a unsat for the checkride. Unsat is bad, it is also know as hooking a ride, or busting a ride. This bothers me, because I know I can fly, I know I can fly well. Each flight, instructors are always happy with my touch and go's. This is awesome because, well, we don't always have to takeoff but we always have to land. What is frustrating for me item that has been giving me trouble is on maneuvers we will never do again in this aircraft. It is also something different within the same maneuver. I'll explain.

Part of our training involves going up into the training area, aka the MOA, and performing basic aircraft control maneuvers. It involves things like steep turns, stalls, and slow flight. All of which are very easy to do and are meant to build basic aircraft control. Well, on the past few flights, I have had issues with the stall. I can perform and recover from the stall well within course training standards. Well, for the each of the last three flights, I have forgotten to "perform" certain steps of the the procedure. I put perform in quotations because the steps I forgot have no effect on how well I performed the procedure. It is simply me forgetting to verbalize things as I perform the maneuver. The more frustrating part is that each time it was something different I forgot to verbalize. It makes it hard to fix the problem when each time it is a different mistake.

To sum this all up, I would have hooked the flight I had on Friday because it was not up to the training standard and it was the flight before my checkride. Luckily, in this case the weather "cooperated" and the flight was incomplete. I get a second chance Monday to get rid of this pesky item before my checkride. Also, in general, hooking a flight is not a big deal, contrary to the way it was at Whiting. But, hooking the flight before your checkride is not good.

In other news, had a pretty successful weekend. My friend won a 1000 bucks at a bar in OKC, the Trojans beat Ohio State, and we went climbing. Fall is starting to show itself around here, too. It is starting to cool and clouds are sticking around. Hopefully, they will clear for my checkride on Tuesday.

Until next time, pray for SURF.

Chris