Well, I have been awful at keeping up with my flyers log! It's been a mix of weather, instructor availability and my own holiday that has made for pretty irregular flying, but I have managed to get 3 more lessons down since last.
Lesson 15, 16 & 1715I'd call these "the pre-solo circuit sessions". It had been a couple of weeks between lesson 14 and 15 and I felt really really rusty, leading to my worst lesson yet. Now in hindsight I actually appreciate the perspective, but at the time it was pretty demoralizing.
It was a fairly gusty day and there was a lot of traffic in the circuit, adding to that a lack of self confidence and it was a mess
.
We were supposed to start practising glide and powerless approaches, but that would wait as just keeping straight and level on the the downwind was proving a challenge. Speed on the approach was all over the place, my eyes stared at the instruments instead of the outside, and well, you know how that goes.
I left dejected and dismayed thinking that the main reason of the poor lesson was the long gap between the last, only getting more worried about the fact that my next lesson wouldn't be for another 3 weeks due to holidays.
16Fast forward to lesson 16. I had been studying air law and ops proc, and kept flying in "my head" so to speak, to keep it fresh during my break. Coming in to the lesson I was a lot more relaxed, I knew I only had to do better than last time to feel like I've progressed, and honestly I think it made all the difference.
Cue one of the best lessons yet. Everything clicked. It felt easy, I felt in control.
We did one regular circuit and my instructor immediately noted that we can forget about last lesson as clearly it was just one of those days.
We practised 2 of each, flapless and glide approaches, which are actually a lot of fun!
I know they're used in less than ideal circumstances, but practising them in a controlled way was great fun.
I struggled a bit with speed control on the glide approach, but get there in the end. The final circuit my FI pulls a semi-unexpected EFATO to practice the procedure for that as well (we had briefed it ahead of the lesson).
17Only a couple of days later, I was still riding the high from the previous lesson. I had been given a pre-solo school checklist to go through as we're getting close to that point, memorising emergency procedures, etc. But in this lesson we're just recapping the same as last, except with a fair amount of crosswind.
Again, it went really well. Having felt like the "basics" of the circuit are now getting stuck, I had a lot more mental capacity to deal with crosswind and anticipate it on each leg.
I was basically on my own most of the lesson (with my FI next to me, not solo), and by the end of the lesson he told me that session was solo worthy.
I'm flying again on Tuesday and depending on the weather that will probably be my first solo. Can't wait!