Was a little too windy to go flying on Saturday so, Declan, my instructor, and I went through some weather briefing groundschool. Very little of it was new to me and what wasn't new was still very fresh as I read met reports regularly, even if I'm not going flying. I certainly know how to read the reports - whether I can interpret all of the information sufficiently well enough to make sound flight planning decision remains to be seen.
I went flying last Thursday as well but it was hideous. Really hideous. From the first radio call till I shut the engine, I was all over the place. I just couldn't settle into it. It felt like I'd never flown a plane before - it was a complete contrast to the previous flight when I'd impressed enough to be signed off for solo. I barely remembered to make my radio calls, when I did remember, they were wrong; I kept missing checks; looking at the wrong altimeter; I was using the rudder pedals like I was stamping grapes - it was just plain ugly and I think the depression was palpable. My answer to the depression was food; a dirty-great-big-double-burger-Weston-special was on the cards.
I walked into the nearly empty restaurant and was greeted by two of my instructor's pals with compliments of "Some nice circuits there". "Gee, thanks" I responded. Their faces told me that their sarcasm was imagined and I duly apologised explaining that the landings they saw from restaurant window occurred in spite of the disaster of a student directing events from the cockpit. When they heard how few hours I actually have on the Grob they dismissed my self-criticism with knowing chuckles. If it looked okay from the outside I reckoned they might have a point. That double-burger, turned out to have been a good idea, both for the belly and the brain.
I'm booked to do some more flying on Saturday and Sunday, so hopefully sign-off on the Grob is just an hour's flying away. I just need to remember to keep the self-criticism in check.
