Wednesday, I had a third day in a row of getting up at 415 to make the 530 sim which was also a double pump, meaning I had another sim later. After the previous day's shameful performance I was not expecting much from that day. However, one thing I had going for me was I had an instructor I had previously and he was a very good instructor. So, going into the sim, I was kind of in a blur. But, after much encouragement from the instructor, I came out the first sim very upbeat. He said I had a great sim and I felt awesome, so I was stoked for that. He gave me very good grades and I was pumped to be going into the second sim. This is exactly what the doctor ordered. The second sim came around and I was feeling very ready to do well. My instructor was super quiet which made me a little anxious but it didn't really affect my flying because he was telling me how great of a job I did afterward. Awesome. Good day. Now all I was hoping for was either my BI flights in the aircraft or no flight at all. Most of all I did not want to start the 4100 block, which is the next block of contacts. Supposedly, the C4101 is the brief and flight that most students bust because they have been studying the BI material not everything else.
When my schedule came out, I was half way stoked, halfway bummed because I was flying on Thursday but I had what's called an out and in. The good thing is that these were my BI flights, the only bad thing was that there were two. However, no big deal because after talking to some guys, the BI flights are super easy, pretty much just like a sim except in the plane. And the out and in means we would fly to a field we wouldn't normally go to and get something to eat and come back to Whiting. Sweet. Come to find out, the IP I was going to fly with was going to perform a checkride for a formation flight and I was going to sit along for the ride. Cool.
So, we brief and take off. I'm just hangin out in the back seat while the instructor does all the flying in the formation. After about an hour, we break off and go do my BI stuff. I can now understand why Forms are the most popular portion of primary. It was fun. The BI stuff went ok, not too hot in my opinion, but no worries I would have a chance to redeem myself after we ate at an airport in Alabama. The second flight was even better. Awesome, another good day. After landing at about 530 pm I am just hoping for no 4101 flight tomorrow. Sure enough, after a long week, I need to go home and cram for my 4101 on Friday. Just what the doctor didn't order.
So, I rush home and by now I am freaking out. Bad news, nothing good happens when you panic. So after about an hour of not retaining any of the info I am studying, I take a break to calm down. It worked, I went back upstairs and calmly reviewed all the info I needed to know to not bust the next day's flight. The reason why so many students bust the 4101 is because there is a ton of info you need to know for the brief.
The 4101 flight is with my on-wing but the next 3 flights are off wing. So, my on-wing shows up puts me through a super long brief that thankfully I did pretty well at, meaning I had survived. After the brief, we had to wait for like an hour and a half for a plane. Not fun. But I didn't care, the brief was over I didn't care how the flight went.
Eventually we got a plane and departed for the training area. The big new item for the flight was spins. He had demoed one before but I was nervous because now I had to perform one myself. Ok, calm down, go through the procedures, you've already seen what it looks like, now just do it yourself. After doing two of them myself, I actually started to have fun. The spins were entertaining. It is totally counter intuitive because you are leaving controlled flight and entering uncontrolled flight but it is really not as bad as it seems.
The rest of the flight went pretty well until we came back on course rules. By then my brain was mush. In the debrief my on-wing told me I had a great flight until we tried to come back. He asked me what was up with that, to which I replied, "I don't know, I guess my brain just quit." He got on me for not knowing course rules, but oh well, I didn't care, I just had a good flight and all I wanted to do was go home and sit and veg. That was quite possibly the longest week I had had in while. But I wouldn't trade it for anything, I learned sooo much, improved a ton and now it was holloween. But that is a different story.
Chris
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