Sorry for not writing recently, but not too much to report because I’ve been home taking care of my mom and then back to work.
I have decided though to start re-reading and refreshing my knowledge of the Airplane Flying Handbook, Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and some of my other books. I made a nice little chart matching up all the sections so I know where to read all about aerodynamics, etc.
His big boy jet (even though its only 50 seats)
My boyfriend is preparing for his yearly check ride, which will also get him his ATP. So he’s been on Flight Simulator X on the computer doing emergency maneuvers. I asked him to go over stalls and steep turns with me so I’m prepared to rock my next lesson, which is always a risky thing because we normally end up mad at each other. He’s definitely hard on me, of course it makes me better, but frustrates me to no end.
I made him set it for hazy since it was so difficult for me. We did a whole bunch of slow flight. He identified a problem with my rudder input, so we worked on that and also holding a heading better in slow flight. It wasn’t my altitude that was a big problem this time. Then we moved onto just doing a stall after stall after stall since I didn’t really need to recover by 1,500 AGL. The drilling I think really helped me. I was also able to see the turn coordinator be not PERFECTLY straight and it not result in a spin, that’ll help me immensely.
After about 45 minutes I realized I was close to being late for work, and I had had enough and was already pretty frustrated at him. When I said goodbye he said he understands it’s much harder on the computer than really flying. I asked him if it was much harder for him. He said yes and said how he’s crashed the simulator plane much more than the real thing. I gave him a smack on the shoulder for a stupid joke and went off to work.
We’ll see if these things stick on Monday (hopefully)! The weather says thunderstorms, I’m hoping they are later in the day. But I also have a block lesson of 4 hours scheduled, which always seem to be cancelled. I’m superstitious coming from a theatre backing so I’m not holding my breath.
You and your boyfriend and the sim sounds like me and my husband when I show him any of my writing 😛 It’s harder to take his feedback, because he’s honest and doesn’t sugar coat his opinion when I’m getting him to beta read, because I care about him and care more about what he thinks of my work than I do some random person on the internet that I send my novel to for feedback. I can imagine it would be hard too, dating someone who also loves flying, but not being on equal footing with him, aviation wise.
I know what you mean on the weather front. Fickle thing. Best I can recommend is find yourself a suitable god of sky or storms or something, and make blood sacrifices.
Haha, glad to hear it happens in other relationships. I decided that it’s the role change that makes me angry because he always lets me decide in everything else, but when it comes to flying it’s him telling me what to do. I’m just not use to it!
Well, without him I wouldn’t have ever discovered my interest in aviation and realized it was an attainable goal. I’m biased, of course, and think he’s the best pilot who has walked the earth, so am happy to have him to ask questions whenever they pop into my mind. But we decided it was best for our relationship for him to never teach me. He’s always there to push me and be an inspiration for me though.
Yeah, some people don’t have the patience to be good teachers. I know a lot of people do their instructor licenses right after they get their commercial, because it’s one of the few jobs they can do without having a ton of hours, so there’s a lot of instructors out there for whom the job is just a stepping stone for time building. My instructor, I can tell she really enjoys being an instructor.
But also, Instructors, I’ve come to believe, are a special kind of sadistically crazy, too. Sandra’s got one student who’s doing his instructor rating right now, and it’s funny listening to her talk about going up with him, because in that case, she’s playing at the role of the student for him. So when she’s going up with him, she says she’s off to go try and kill him.
It would be nice, though, to have someone close to me that I could talk to who knew enough about aviation to have more real conversations about it. My husband gets tired of me talking about it.