The crunch begins
It's been a busy week and next week is looking to be even more difficult.
Flew 3.2 hours in the Cirrus as safety pilot on Monday. Another pilot in our club needed to fly six approaches and a hold to stay IFR current so up we went.
It's always interesting watching another pilot fly an approach and I learn a ton every time. If you have the chance, fly as safety pilot for people as often as possible.
Tuesday, Christine and I presented our weather and performance charts lessons. Weather is one of those lessons that you start teaching the first flight and keep teaching right through the checkride, at flight reviews and any other opportunity you have to fly with somebody.
It's also my weakest subject, and damn important, so I really have to work hard at it.
After ground school at Anoka I hustled over the Crystal to go fly with a friend. He's getting ready to start training for his private license so I've been letting him start the airplane, taxi and handle most of the flying duties.
What's really interesting is how much better he's flying after just a couple of flights. I can't instruct him, obviously, but by just letting him fly and explaining what to do he's catching on and doing a fine job taxiing, flying the four fundamentals and slow flight.
In fact, he was flying so well last night I showed him how to fly a traffic pattern out in the practice area then let him fly the pattern back into Crystal.
I took over on short final and his sigh of relief when I finally started flying cracked me up. He'd done a fantastic job up until that point and we were set up in a nice, stabilized approach right on the glidepath so there wasn't much left for me to do but round out, flare and land.
It's been incredibly satisfying to watch him fly better every time we go up and I'm starting to get a glimpse of the upside of being a flight instructor.
I didn't realize how much I'd be invested in helping other people fly well. When I'm out there, either with my friend or with Cheryl playing the role of a student, I get totally absorbed in their performance. It really is more fun than I had expected.
I'm also finally really comfortable in the right seat. It took about 10 hours but I'm starting to feel at home over there and have finally gotten the sight picture down so I can stay on the damn centerline.
Next week is going to be brutal. We're doing ground four out of five days and flying on the fifth. If we push, we might get six or seven lessons presented, which means we'll only have seven more to go.
Another heavy week like that and it'll be time to start prepping for the checkride!
As busy as next week is for me, it's even worse for Christine who is doing the same thing I'm doing plus her multi-engine commercial. Phew! That's a tall order.
Flew 3.2 hours in the Cirrus as safety pilot on Monday. Another pilot in our club needed to fly six approaches and a hold to stay IFR current so up we went.
It's always interesting watching another pilot fly an approach and I learn a ton every time. If you have the chance, fly as safety pilot for people as often as possible.
Tuesday, Christine and I presented our weather and performance charts lessons. Weather is one of those lessons that you start teaching the first flight and keep teaching right through the checkride, at flight reviews and any other opportunity you have to fly with somebody.
It's also my weakest subject, and damn important, so I really have to work hard at it.
After ground school at Anoka I hustled over the Crystal to go fly with a friend. He's getting ready to start training for his private license so I've been letting him start the airplane, taxi and handle most of the flying duties.
What's really interesting is how much better he's flying after just a couple of flights. I can't instruct him, obviously, but by just letting him fly and explaining what to do he's catching on and doing a fine job taxiing, flying the four fundamentals and slow flight.
In fact, he was flying so well last night I showed him how to fly a traffic pattern out in the practice area then let him fly the pattern back into Crystal.
I took over on short final and his sigh of relief when I finally started flying cracked me up. He'd done a fantastic job up until that point and we were set up in a nice, stabilized approach right on the glidepath so there wasn't much left for me to do but round out, flare and land.
It's been incredibly satisfying to watch him fly better every time we go up and I'm starting to get a glimpse of the upside of being a flight instructor.
I didn't realize how much I'd be invested in helping other people fly well. When I'm out there, either with my friend or with Cheryl playing the role of a student, I get totally absorbed in their performance. It really is more fun than I had expected.
I'm also finally really comfortable in the right seat. It took about 10 hours but I'm starting to feel at home over there and have finally gotten the sight picture down so I can stay on the damn centerline.
Next week is going to be brutal. We're doing ground four out of five days and flying on the fifth. If we push, we might get six or seven lessons presented, which means we'll only have seven more to go.
Another heavy week like that and it'll be time to start prepping for the checkride!
As busy as next week is for me, it's even worse for Christine who is doing the same thing I'm doing plus her multi-engine commercial. Phew! That's a tall order.
posted by Will at 11:21 AM
1 Comments:
Multiengine commercial instrument, you mean. :)
-C.
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