The dilemma continues to grow

I finally got to fly my cross-country to Tucson with Darren today. Oh, how I wish I could tell you it went well. How I wish I could just chuckle and say, "Boy, was I silly to worry so much about flying with Darren." Instead, I'm forced to sit here and confess that today is the first day since moving to Arizona, that I've seriously wondered if I misunderstood God's will.

I should start by saying that an hour of dual instruction costs me a little over a hundred dollars total. The cross-country took 3.3 hours. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of $350-$400. And I've got a very strong suspicion that that money was wasted and I'm going to have to redo the flight with another instructor. See, I'm at a point in my training where I can get in a plane, fly around to pretty much wherever I want to go, and land it again, all safely. I've already learned how to do just about all I need to know for my private pilot certificate. All I'm really missing is 3 hours of night flight, some experience with Air Traffic Control communications, and a handful of day flight hours. My point is that I don't really need to be taught anything on a dual day cross-country flight, except for ATC communications. I know how to take off. I know how to taxi. I know how to land. I know how to fly the traffic pattern. I know how to determine pattern altitudes. I've already spent the time and money learning how to do those things. On the flight today, Darren insisted on teaching me everything EXCEPT ATC communications. He treated me like I was a first-hour student. Everytime I was just about to land, he took over the controls and landed for me. He tried to tell me I didn't know how to fly the traffic pattern. He made all my frequency changes and all the little things I'm supposed to be learning to do myself, in order to learn to manage my workload. And he made all my ATC radio calls for me. I did not say a single word to Air Traffic Control today. Not one word.

So I finish up with Darren, and I come back home, and I open up my syllabus to see what the completion requirements were for this flight, and it turns out that the big completion standard is being able to operate in Class C airspace and communicate with ATC WITHOUT ASSISTANCE!!! So basically, I just spent $350 on a flight that meant very little regarding my training and failed to meet the completion standards of the lesson. And what does that mean? (Everybody now!) JOSH IS GOING TO HAVE TO REDO THE FLIGHT IN ORDER TO COMPLETE THIS LESSON! On top of that, I'm not eligible to fly the cross-country stage check with Belinda until I've completed the standards set for this cross-country flight.

So now I have to wait til Monday and try to catch Belinda in her office so I can let her know what's going on. I don't want to get Darren in trouble, but this is all much too serious to have him airheading his way through my training. The icing on the cake was when I was sitting in Darren's office and he asked me, "Now, you already have your private certificate, right?"

I'm so afraid, right now, that I'm not going to be able to finish my training here. That I wasted mine and Jen's lives by moving us here. That I misunderstood God's will and brought us across the country for nothing. That we're going to have to move to another flight school to complete my training. That I've failed.