Thanks for all the comments on the last post! Unfortunately, my next lesson didn’t go so well. I left the lesson feeling very discouraged.
The past couple of times, we’ve been flying the Cessna 152 with 150HP. I left the lesson feeling exhausted, crappy, and achy. I had fallen victim to the “death grip” on the yoke, which I don’t think will happen again my right arm and shoulder hurt for days afterwards! (My right arm since I’m learning to fly from the right seat too)
It was another lesson struggling with pull back hard enough to stall during power on stalls. And they were just the warm up. Within 15 minutes I was ready to call it quits and head back to the airport. Of course, Jake pushed me forward.
Slow flight was difficult again for me, but then slow flight with the foggles on was easier? I don’t really know how to explain that. Near the end of that time though I was getting exhausted from the concentrating. I was getting sloppy.The yawing of the airplane didn’t sit well with me and I had to pull the foggles off since I was getting disorientated. I thought it felt long, but it was only 0.2 in the logbook.
Was that the end though? Oh no! If I wasn’t feeling disorientated enough it was unusual attitude time with some accelerated stalls added on to the end. Unusual attitudes weren’t bad. They’ve always been something that hasn’t been too hard to figure out for myself. Accelerated stalls again aren’t something I really enjoy and as a factor of my death grip, it was getting hard for me to have the energy to pull back as needed for them.
Came in for a couple of landings and my approaches were all over the place, but the landings fine. I need to get back into stable approaches and not come in high or low and fix it after the fact.
After tying down the aircraft and walking back, Jake asked how I thought I had done. He knew I was discouraged and I thought I did awful. He said I didn’t but I responded that he seemed highly critical the entire lesson and it seemed I never did anything right.
We spent the next hour trying to figure out the issue. Was it the extra horsepower? Was my seat too low since I was uncomfortable with pitching high? Possibly was it Jake instructing me and it? We went through a lot of options and didn’t come to a conclusion.
It sucked to feel so discouraged and begin questioning flight training. I hope I can overcome this hurdle.
Lesson Time: 1.6 hours
I know what you mean, I got my PPL years ago and decided to get back into it.
It was frustrating going over the same things that I struggled with years ago as if I had learned nothing and sometimes I do wonder about the money I’m spending.
I suppose though that part of the allure of flying is that it is challenging, and that the learning never stops.
You got this!! Keep your chin up. 🙂 Everyone has bad days. If you had a friend who felt she did as poorly as you did, would you criticize her harshly? Of course not! Be as kind to yourself as you would be to your best friend. I bet your next lesson will be amazing!
Don’t be discouraged as all pilots have had bad days. And on the flip side great days. Being a pilot means continually learning as the elements are always changing.
There were multiple times during my PPL that I came back from a lesson and thought that I would not make it to the end. I am glad I pressed on past the lessons that were FILLED with criticism. And I wonder about having someone you know well instructing you. My brother is pretty sure that I would have done better with a different instructor, that our primary instructor was someone that was looking to keep his currency and build some hours, not someone with a love of teaching.
When I did IFR training under the hood there were two lessons where I felt *really* uncomfortable after I was staring at the instruments for what seemed like forever. 0.4 was one of them.
Actually, 0.2 hrs is quite a long time. Try sitting in a chair and staring at a clock for 12 minutes (and it could’ve been longer; 0.2 could be 14 or 15 minutes). At 120 knots, you’d cover 24 nautical miles under the hood.
It’s like anything else, the more you do it, the easier it’ll get. I hand flew a Skylane from LA to Seattle in solid IMC once. But I sure didn’t start out that way! It all began just as you are doing it: one tenth at a time. 🙂
I don’t know if I’d want to have my significant other take a teaching role with me, to be honest. Even if it’s a good relationship of equals – hell, especially if it’s a good relationship of equals, it would be hard to hear the kind of criticism an instructor needs to give their student from someone I need to know loves me and thinks well of me. He might very well be able to be completely objective and professional with you in the plane, as if there was no relationship, but the fact that there is that relationship will make his criticisms sound harsher.
I had a great relationship with my instructor and we eventually became friends, but the instructor-student relationship will always have made a stamp on the way I think of her, and it will likely never be a relationship of equals. I’ll always look up to her, and there’s nothing at all wrong with having that sort of relationship with someone, but I don’t think I’d want to have that kind of a relationship with a significant other.