Seized with an acute attack of longing for the sky, last Thursday I threw finacial caution to the wind and sent what was probably a rather desperate sounding e-mail message to my CFI, Andres. I asked him to call me the very next time he had an opening and the weather was good. I gave him phone numbers for my house, my work number, and my grad student office. I wanted to make sure he could find me. Saturday morning he called about 9AM. First, he started apologizing for waking me up. Usually I'm awake way before 9 on Saturday, but I didn't sleep too well Friday night. Anyway, he asked if I wanted to fly. :-)) He He He He He That's not the way I act with him. I answered with a (hopefully) dignified, "I want to go as often as I can possibly get the chance. Thank you for calling. What time should I be at the airport?" "1PM". Forget getting anything done Saturday morning. I was pretty keyed up but not to the extreme of the first time. That keyed up feeling is not exactly fear, although there is a component of fear in it as well as feelings of anticipation and excitement. I have never competed in athletic competitions but I imagine the sensations are similar. I did force myself to eat some oatmeal although I would have preferred not to. Food was the last thing that interested me. What a superb day, weather wise. It was even clearer than for the first lesson. With the increasing spring growth, more greening and more flowering was apparent (azaleas, several species of magnolias, some of the early blooming fruit trees). I am cognizant of the importance of the preflight inspection and I pay close attention to what Andres is telling me. I promise you all that I will not neglect or rush through this when I'm on my own. Nonetheless, the desire to get going was overwhelming. We took a different Cessna 172 this time. You may say that I'm too green to be able to detect differences in the 2 Cessna 172s, but I swear that I did. I can see that it will take me some time to get everything down, but I know I will eventually. When moving around on the ground, the idea of driving with my feet only is not an easy one for me. It seems like that yoke ought to be able to do something even though I logically know it can't. I guess this is different with the coupe, eh, with no rudder pedals? I didn't do a very good job of keeping lined up with the yellow line but I'll do better next time. I did take off this time - too abruptly. It was OK because we had a high enough air speed. I knew that I goofed as soon as I did it. I need to get a better sense of what is too much and what is not enough with all of the controls. So far, I tend to do not enough rather than too much. But with that takeoff, I was amazed how little it takes to get off the ground. So for this lesson, it seems like Andres had me doing and keeping track of more things than last time (as it should be). I must say that I did not have an easy time keeping the ailerons in the right position, keeping the"little ball" centered, keeping the nose in the right position, keeping the altitude and heading than he wanted, and watching for other airplanes. It seems like I'd get a 2 or 3 things OK and then something else would be out of whack. Andres had to keep telling me the same things over and over and over. It's not that I forget what he says. It's that, for now, I'm having trouble keeping all the plates spinning at the same time. It's a good thing Andres is so patient. The person who taught me to drive was a screamer. I couldn't learn how to fly from someone like that. It would be too unnerving. There was one period of several minutes where I was able to maintain everthing where it was supposed to be. I had to suppress the urge to vocally express my joy and delight. It's already embarrassing enough that everyone tuned to the local channel can hear us. Yeah, I know it's not the first or last time someone heard a student being almost constantly corrected. We went up and down the coast, practicing doing several turns in the process. It is so beautiful here, especially from the air. The Pacific Ocean is on the west side and the coast range is to the east. Inbetween are the small towns and and dairy farms. The only clouds, were way to the east, hanging over the mountains as they often do. The dairy farms were especially green, due to the recent rains. The delta of the Eel River is much wider than I realized. I have been looking at satellite images of our area for years, but it sure isn't the same as flying over it in a small plane. I know I'm not the passenger and I'm not supposed to be concentrating on the vistas. I don't. But I'm surrounded by such extraordinary beauty that I can't help but see it, even if it's with my peripheral vision. Too soon it was time to go back to the airport. Andres let me fly almost all the way back except for the traffic pattern and the landing. My attention is riveted on what he is doing. I will be landing also, in the not too distant future. I couldn't believe we were actually up there for an hour! It seemed like 10 minutes. I have much to think about and review in my mind. I write down everything I can remember of what he tells me. I would like to take notes at the time he tells me things but I can't fly and take notes at the same time. It wouldn't surprise me if you folks get a good deal of chuckles from my ackward first attempts. That's OK with me. Eagerly looking forward to my next lesson, Georgia __________________________________________________________________________ ______ To unsubscribe from this list please send mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________ Enlighten your in-box. http://www.topica.com/t/15
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