18 April 2003 21:15
my confession:0324-2 day 00: juan (my instructor) and i went up to finish the required time before i could take my stage check. everything went smoothly, i flew a perfect short field landing... i was ready.
0409-4 day 16: due to tight examiner scheduling, my high class load, weather, and at least one cancellation by my examiner, it has now been 16 days since i was ready. i've been flying the 172's, so i'm not too rusty, but it's still been two weeks since i've been in a duchess. no matter, i sail through the stage check with only one or two minor detractions-until the very end. my last landing, a shortfield landing. concentrating on the point, i'm a little long but within tolerance. however, i apply absolutely zero technique post-landing, forgetting completely the whole deal of "maximum effective braking."
i didn't even think about it until after we were inside, paperwork finished, ride debriefed, and he says, "i hate to do this, but you and i are going to have to go back up again. can you tell me what was wrong with your short field?" it took me about 1.25 seconds of sequential thinking, and there it was, glaring like a really bright glaring thing.
excuses? 1) i've been practicing tngs for nifa, the rules for that are to land within the 300' box, roll clear, flaps up, power addition and away. braking does not enter the picture. 2) school practice is to land, start to apply brakes, the instructor says, "that's good enough," flaps up and we're away. 3) prior to the flight and in the maneuver, i was focused on the target (the hard part), not on the rollout (the easy part).
verdict? i screwed up. i over-focused, i neglected part of the maneuver, i did it wrong. fine. i'll go up and do it again.
0410-5 day 17: i went up with examiner #2. i flew a very tight pattern, came in high, landed long (tol -0+100).
i've had this examiner before, and he's hard for me to fly for, a perfectionist, he makes me nervous. missing that landing shook me up pretty good. my normal expectation is to fail a stage check. but to fail the retest? to do it in front of examiner #2 didn't help any. on shutdown i was distracted enough to skip items on the checklist, which of course the examiner pointed out to me.
excuses? 1) it was hot and bumpy. 2) i wasn't used to patterns in the duchess, i tried to keep it as tight as i do a 172 for nifa.. that's too tight for a duchess. 3) examiner #2 unnerves me. i was flustered already on the climbout. 4) i didn't realize i could legally do a go around on a stagecheck. 5) i hadn't gotten enough sleep.
verdict? it was my fault. i was ill-prepared, didn't have my patterns down for the duchess. juan had told me repeatedly that i could go around if i didn't like the approach (within reason). as a pilot i'm supposed to be in control. even if it's jane garvey herself sitting in the right seat.
0411-6 day 18: juan and i went around the pattern 4 times. again i was not very prepared, and he had to teach me the proper procedure for pattern work. however, i hit the spot all four times. i was ready
0414-2 day 21: i was scheduled to go up with examiner #1, but weather intervened. the fog lifted, and i was able to go with examiner #2. my pattern was better, my approach good (albeit high, requiring a steep glideslope), but i didn't hold the flare long enough, dropping on short. typical procedure in this case is to go for three more. if you get 3 out of 4 you pass. 1/4 i'd landed short. 2/4 i went around because i was long. 3/4 tower extended downwind until i was about 4 miles out on final (that's about 4 times farther than a normal pattern). however, i came in low and flat and managed to hit the spot. time constrained us because of the long patterns (we'd extended 1/4 as well), and we went in.
i had mostly conquered the demon as far as flying with #2 was concerned, although i was still not perfectly at ease. i was very disappointed, to the point of doing my macho equivalent to crying (getting all misty-eyed and despondent).
excuses? 1) the first landing was good except for a slight downdraft. 2) it was tower's fault for giving us such long downwinds.
verdict? again the blame is mine. true, misjudging my height above the runway on the first one is not something to seriously berate myself with. it happens occasionally, and it's no big deal to think you're a foot or two higher than you actually are. unless you're doing a real life short field and landing 20 feet short of the runway will kill you. all of my approaches on short final i was high, no matter how low i was turning from base. my aimpoint for the duchess was simply too close to the target. it was also true that while sleep had been a factor in the previous failure, 7.5 hours left me no excuse on this round.
why did i fail this stage check three times? what did i learn?
failure #1) i was cocky. i was supremely confident in myself. this stage check was going to be a breeze. i'm an extremely good pilot and i know it, i can rely in my natural skills to get me through.
lesson #1) cockiness is a bad attitude. where did i get my "natural skills." a wake up call from God to help me get my attitude straight. also, being overconfident can be lethal.
failure #2) again, i was confident in "my" abilities. believing that the only thing wrong the first time around had been my failure to brake, i thought merely to go up and do what i'd been doing, just remembering to brake this time. i was rushing too much, flying through the checklists.
lesson #2) i had terrible form in the pattern, my approach was terrible, my loss of composure after landing almost alarming. i am not the all-confident pilot i thought i was. if a mere person sitting silently in the right seat can fluster me that badly, how would i react in a real emergency? again, my "skills" did not prevail. time to give the glory to God, not me. also time to slow down. ignore the two minutes i save by plowing through the checklist, be thorough, it's part of being a calm pilot under fire.
failure #3) i still expected my abilities to see me through this test. all three approaches were above glideslope on short final.
lesson #3) here i was taught that sometimes there are simply things i can't account for, like the light downdraft that pushed me onto the runway because i wasn't ready for it. i had learned somethings, my pattern was satisfactory, my preflight and postflight procedures as well, because i went through them patiently, calmly, surely. still, my confidence was misplaced. on another note, i learned that i was stressing too much about this flight stuff. for someone who prides himself on stressing about life as little as possible, i get stressed a lot. i was getting way too wrapped up in a "must finish now!" attitude. after i found this out, i also found out that my schedule wasn't as constricted as i thought, and time opened wide before me.
0414-2 day 21: juan and i went up that night. i moved my aim point and did four very decent landings. i was ready, and practiced.
0417-5 day 24: the sun rose beautifully, the day dawned warm and clear. i was in an undefinable grumpy mood (probably had something to do with getting up at 0530 while it was still dark. i don't mind being awake at sunrise, it's the getting awake that's the rough part). i hadn't thought much about this flight. i'd gone through the pattern in my head a couple times, but nothing beyond that. i half expected to fail the dumb thing again. i had had a decent night's sleep, but was still tired. examiner #3 is laid back, has sleepy movements, tells dry corny jokes (really really really corny, always groaners). much less unnerving that #2. he wanted to see two for two, so we calmly went twice around the pattern. both were about 50 feet long, but within tolerance.
verdict? all of my previous re-attempts and practices had been for rwy 17. this morning we were using 35, none of my predetermined turn points were valid. the first round we were extended to a two mile final, my second round i went out a little far myself. still, i was able to make the airplane do what it was supposed to do, but only because God has given me that ability.
i can't fully say that i "surrendered to God." i struggled with that idea for a while in the course of the three weeks, but found it very difficult to differentiate between trusting God and flying the airplane. flying is something that comes naturally to me, mostly i trust in that natural ability, not so much in my ability to conscienciously fly it. i can say that i was more relaxed. i wasn't concerned much at all with the outcome, to that i was resigned. if i pass i pass, if i fail i fail, so be it. you can call that trust, you can just as easily call it being defeatist. i do know that i pleaded for God to help me pass... i wanted to pass, and i knew him to be in control of that.
i've always wanted to serve God with my abilities, but it's hard for me to make that a reality. i get caught up in the moment, my purpose for the last four years being to finish school, not so much serve him. i've always said, yes, i'm learning these skills for him, but i've never really felt that come to fruit.
lessons? slow down, take life one moment at a time, trust in God, and recognize him as the source of both rain and sun.
in truth i am a very good pilot. the song says "count your many blessings" and i could do that. i excel in much that i do, and usually without trying. i learned last year from dad that my fifth grade teacher had told him and mom of how much i scared her. she saw so much potential in me, and she did not know how to handle me (then as now, i was not the most obedient child), she was afraid she'd somehow destroy that potential. seeing, feeling so much potential in me scares me as well. the obvious and direct link goes to the parable of the ten talents. i feel like i've been handed a solid three or four talents, stuck them in my pouch and continued on, saying, "i'll take care of these when i graduate in four years."
i've been apprehensive off and on about what the future holds. what job to get, where to live. i've been telling God, "please make it obvious." if God has lavished this many gifts on me, then i've long known he has something in mind to use them for (he's a good steward of his gifts you could say). the comfort lies in knowing that if he spent this much time giving them to me, then he's going to take a little bit of time to tell me where he wants me to use them. meanwhile i'll move blindly ahead taking a job back home, hoping that something else will grab my attention, because i'd really rather not take this job.
it took three weeks, but my stage check is finally passed. it's made me so leery that i changed that from "it took three weeks, but i finally passed my stage check." to what you see above.
21:15 email me permalink / commentary (0)
