12 April 2003 22:22
i've had a long traumatic battle with getting past the latest flight test in my training. between scheduling, weather, and instructor's cancelling for no apparent reason, it's been something like three weeks from the time i was ready to the time i actually flew for it. the test went great, except i botched the very last manouever. so i went up a day later to redo that manouver and i really botched it (quite badly actually). the instructor i went up for is picky. i don't mean that in a bad way. the aviation world is filled with pilots from the cocky idiots who think they're all that to the timid idiots who're afraid to fly more than two miles from the airport in case they have an engine failure. mr. c is not timid by anymeans, but he is indeed very cautious. he will not make a move without carefully considering all the risks at hand and making a decision based on that risk assesment. i'm more towards the cocky side (not cocky per se, but more towards that end of the spectrum than timidity). cockiness is not my problem.. i try hard to not come across as cocky, especially since i know i am a very good pilot compared to others with the same nubmer of hours as i have. it is important to know your skill level, to have confidence in the abilities you have (for instance, to not downplay them), and to be open to further instruction. it's the last one that gives me mixed feelings in dealing with mr. c.he's a tough examiner to fly for. the last two times i've flown with him (once last sememster, and once this), after the ride he took it upon himself to sit me down and give me a serious talking to about my habits as a pilot. he has no issue with my flying ability, what he is concerned about is my attitude/approach to flying. i do consider myself to be rather impervious to death. i've had my fair share of close scrapes (the kind that release near-lethal doses of adrenaline and leave you very, very, very convinced that there is a God and he's got plans for you...(alive and not dead)). what that leaves me is a feeling that i don't have to worry too much, becuase God's watching out for me. on the other hand, what if he's kept me alive this long only to let me die as an example to others that we shouldn't get too careless? in an airplane i'm actually fairly careful. driving a car is an entirely different matter.
last semester mr. c. spent ten minutes wearing a "this concerns me face" and telling me about people he knew who died because they didn't use a checklist. it was a little rough, but i just sat there and took it, knodding at the appropriate points. then i thought about it for the next few days. then i took the checklists that i hadn't been using, reprinted them in a format that was easier to read (while still maintaining the integrity of the original checklist), and started using those. essentially, i took about 80% of what he said to heart (this must mean i've finally grown up into an intelligent mature adult who realizes the truth in the constructive criticism of an elder, right? ;) ). this last flight with him he got me flustered again. try as i might, he's a tough one to sit beside in an airplane. you can never tell what he's thinking, he just sits there and looks at you. i enjoy him in a classroom, but i see his flight instruction like i would a strenous workout after crhistmas break... painful to experience, painful to recouperate from, but good for you in the long run. he actually has a good sense of humour (somewhat twisted yes, but definately not nonexistant like some claim), but he's the type who's serious "i'm disappointed, i expected more of you" look is quite painful to bear.
so despite me giving extra special attention to my checklists this time around, i still managed to drop several items off teh shutdown list. when we got inside he gave me another talk (thankfully shorter this time.. it helps to have a class right after your flight block). he wasn't too impressed with the flight, i know that, and i know he knows i can do much better. this time the subject was my tendency towards a devil-may-care attitude (we're finally getting back to the issue of not carefully considering all the risks). he wanted to see my checklist. in the end he had nothing against it (although he was still very leery, i couldn't give him a very good reason why i didnt' like the official checklist). he wanted me to make sure i thought things through very carefully before i took action. like last semester, i sat through it (i actually could have made a defense this time, i probably spent two hours carefully thinking over how to design the format of the checklist, but part of being "wise and mature" [2] is knowing when it's better to take your medicine than argue against it). he also applied it to my flight, since i came in high on a short field and didn't go-around (i had a must-get-it-right-the-first-time mentality for some reason. my instructor was agog that i had forgotten that. oh yeah, he and i went up yesterday and went around the pattern four times and hit the target every time. go figure.. the stakes weren't quite as high.
so what did i learn? leaving the airport to come back to school, i of course immediately started rationalizing (now that's something i've been fighting a running battle with since christmas break). sure, it's true i was short on sleep, sure it was true that i hadn't flown the pattern in a while. but it was also true that i hadn't prepared very well, and also true that i had flat out done the procedure incorrectly (not grossly so, but there were a number of smaller inconsistencies between proper procedure and the pattern i did). of course, if i had gotten a decent amount of sleep in the 48hrs preceding, i might have been able to scrape by the retest. but failing instead allowed mr. c. the oppurtunity to teach me something. well, i'm not sure what he's taught me yet. this time's not nearly as cleardefined as last semester's issue was. what's struck me this time is the things i've learned about myself and my flying ability (or lack thereof in certain instances). plus it never hurts to have a little ego check every now and then.
i flew with my instructor the very next day. again, i had only 6hrs of sleep, and while i performed the four landings well enough to get by my instructor, i was not very pleased with them. i was again rushed, behind the plane, and unaware of procedure. so i've learned right? yeah, so monday morning wehn i retest for the second time, i'll be slept up, studied up, and ready. (and the plane will be broken--murphy's taken a very special interest in me).
okay, in case none of that made sense, i'm going for a summary/moral statement all in one paragraph. (okay, so i've sat here for two minutes trying to think up a way of summary. see, i don't do summaryies very well. (besides not being able to spell them). in case you haven't noticed, my talents lie more in the way of extreme tangental manouvering and rabbit trails like this one). i think i'll go abstract::
=============
when i look ahead i see that soon i shall be graduated. when i look back, i see that my freshman year is very fuzzy, but last year seems like yesterday. the me of 3.5yrs ago has of course many similarities to the johnny5 of today. but i am now on a different mental plane. just like the change in maturity i noticed over my highschool years, so i see a rather drastic one over the course of my college years. what bugs me is that i still don't feel 21 (or 22, however old i am now). but i would have a hard time getting along with the me of 1999 (he was pretty obnoxious). but now i still have a hard time getting along with the me of 2003 (he's pretty obnoxious).
okay, after erasing a paragraph written in a paltry attempt to summarize, i have firmly decided to not summarize. make of the above what you will. end of subject, next topic...
22:22 email me permalink / commentary (0)
