200

Somewhere on short final to 14R at Crystal today I passed 200-hours of dual given. Appropriately it was in a 172 on a bumpy, windy morning.

It was just shy of three months ago that I passed 100-hours of dual given, so it's been a good few months.

Basically my schedule has me flying once or twice a day, six days a week. That's great, but it also means spending a bunch of time in traffic getting to and from the airport, which isn't so great.

I'm up to eight students working on ratings right now, four instrument and four primary, and it's work just to keep straight who is doing what next. Trying to keep a high level of service and personal attention is critical, both for the student and from the business perspective. It's also tough because I spend so much time flying with so many different people in a bunch of different airplanes the lessons all sort of run together after a while.

I've also been picking up some currency flights and aircraft checkouts, which is a fun diversion. On Wednesday I did a currency flight in our club's Cirrus SR-20 with another pilot. Thursday I started getting another pilot ready for an Instrument Proficiency Check in his Mooney and tomorrow I'm checking out a pilot in a Bonanza.

The beauty of doing so much instruction is how much I learn about flying every day. It's a huge challenge and just plain hard work but you sure do learn a lot.

A couple of students are getting close to their checkrides, so I'm really excited to get them finished up. I see the effort they put in every day and it's a good reminder of my own struggles when I was working on my licenses and ratings.

Learning to fly is never easy but it's especially tough as you get closer to a checkride because you know how to do what needs to be done and your standards are high, but some days the performance isn't quite there, which is a huge frustration.

I just keep reminding folks that everybody goes through the same period and they know how to fly so it's just a matter of polishing the little things.