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After my ego (and nerves!) had taken a comprehensive battering at the previous lesson my mindset had shifted from “I’m here to show the instructor I already know what I’m doing” to “I’m here to learn”. For any students out there, as soon as you stop learning you’re in trouble. We briefed quickly at the…
I’ve mentioned before that pride comes before a fall. Today proved this once again: this was a frustrating and disappointing lesson. The Pride Driving up to the airfield today I was in a buoyant mood. The music on the radio was energetic and positive, and I knew today would either be another revision lesson or…
Well! It’s been 7 months since my last lesson due to Long COVID keeping my medical certificate (which is required to go solo) just out of reach, but I’m back armed with a LAPL medical certificate and back in some 1960s vintage flying metal. LAPL? Medical certificates? Let me explain… LAPL, PPL, WTF? In the…
Stalling 2. This was one of my most fun lessons yet. Building on the basic clean- and turning-stalls from last lesson today we would be simulating a bunch of close-to-the-ground stall situations that were a lot more dangerous – except we’d be doing them at 4,000ft (my new altitude record). As with the previous lesson,…
“We’re doing stalls today,” said my instructor. This was the lesson I’d dreaded the most. Being a plane geek for years, I could recite many crashes from stalls over the years. One stuck in my head as the briefing began – the tragic accident involving an Air France A330 over the South Atlantic ocean. After…
Another day driving into dark clouds expecting to do ground school took a turn for the better as the clouds broke and blue skies peeked through the closer I got to the airfield. My instructor briefed that this lesson was going to be about climbing and descending, but as the first flight of the day…
I did not expect to fly today. When I woke up it was raining and the sky was a dark grey in all directions, all the way to the horizon, but I drove the 45 miles to the airfield anyway, knowing I could do some ground-school with my instructor if we were grounded. My instructor…
I arrived still buoyed by the joy of unexpectedly landing at the end of my second lesson. Perhaps even a little cocky. This flying stuff is easy! I even invited my wife and daughter to watch my take off. The friend who recommended the flight school to me gave a bunch of great advice and…