Dont believe your ears!

Got a first hand demonstration of the importance of trusting your instruments today...

I went up with the CFI, so he could check my progress and make sure that I am learning what i should be.

He seemed a little surprised that with the amount of hours that I had, that I was not up to where I should be in the syllabus... until I explained my history and 5 year gap between hours 32 and 33 of my flight training :)

He was also concerned my IFR flight was not as good as it should be with 3 or 4 hours of IFR... until I explained I only had 0.7 hours!

I'm going to put it down to a couple of things... firstly, my car was stolen on friday... I got back to the train station after work and after staring at the empty parking spot for about 2 or 3 seconds realised it was gone... grrrrrr

Secondly, I think I was a touch nervous flying with the 'Big Cheese'... silly I know, but there is always going to be a little performance anxiety when demonstrating in front of a senior aviator.

Anyway, back to the topic... don't believe your (inner) ears! I got a bad case of the leans... it was really wierd... I could have sworn we were straight and level, but the plane was obviously banked to the right as we kept drifting and I could see the AI showing a slight bank. Whenever I tried to correct it, I thought I was banking left and instinctively corrected that! The result being that I found it very difficult to maintain straight and level flight.

Later, Trevor told me that it was good that I had experienced that, and even better that I had realised what was happening... I just wish I had been able to correct it better.

Following that, some FLWOP practise, did OK... I am fairly confident that I will be able to put the plane down safely if the worst does happen (touch wood)... and then back to NZAR for some circuits.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the airfield, as the weather was just perfect for flying, world+dog had decided to go flying and there were planes all over the place, so we cut it short and headed for the grass... I did ok for my 3rd grass landing ever, but was a little fast on the approach... I think I will ask Trevor for some grass/short landing practise... I might even just go up for some solo circuits to work on it.

Next week will be Compass Turns and following sign-off of competency at that, I will be able to fly solo outside the circuit. ie. I can go to the training area on my own :)

This flight: 1.1 Hours Dual (0.2 IFR)
Total Hours: 48.0 (44.2 Dual, 3.8 Solo, 0.9 IFR)