Lesson 8: Gel.

First off, I need to make a note about the absence of a post for Lesson 7. See, there are certain "briefing" requirements my instructor and I need to meet. Lesson 7 was one of those times where we basically sat in Josh's office for an hour and talked about things I need to know about flying and the plane and paperwork and stuff. No flying involved. And, talented writer though I may arguably be, even I struggle to catch my readers' interest when it comes to relating a story about an hour's worth of talking.

So on to Lesson 8. I subtitled it Gel because I really felt like things were starting to gel for me today. Stuff is just starting to come together, and that's very exciting. When I walked into Josh's office for my post-flight briefing, after closing my flight plan and putting the plane keys back, he started by saying, "You did really good today." That's the kind of pat on the back that makes me feel like a million bucks!

My flight time started with my best takeoff yet; a good rotation followed by the proper climb angle. After we got up to our cruise altitude (6500 MSL), Josh taught me a little bit about which mountains were which out there. It was cool because our visibility was almost unlimited, so we could see a couple mountain ranges over in New Mexico. The goals of today's lesson were steep turns, slow flight, and more stalls. I admit that my steep turns were ugly. I couldn't get the bank angles I needed to keep my altitude constant. But, since it was really my first introduction to steep turns, I guess I did okay. Slow flight has, in the past, been difficult for me, but today it was good. In fact, it was so good that Josh complimented me on it. Maybe it was just my imagination, but he sounded almost surprised by my improvement (I know I was).

My stalls were pretty fair, too. Mostly we did power-on stalls, and I was introduced to stalls in a turn. Basically, you set up for a power-on stall, then bank the plane a little. Piece of cake. At the end of the lesson, Josh had me demonstrate a power-off stall. In the past, these have given me a bit of trouble, because there are 3 steps you need to do almost simultaneously to properly recover from the stall, and I always have trouble doing them quick enough. Today was no exception. We flew a little longer than usual today, and I could feel myself growing fatigued, so my already-messy power-off stall technique wound up being even messier than usual. It was bad enough that I flat-out said, "That was messy. I apologize." Josh agreed and asked me if I wanted to try another one, but I had a feeling that any other maneuvers I attempted would just grow progressively more sloppy, so I let him know I was at my limit. He respected my decision, and we headed for home.

Overall, it was a fantastic lesson, and it left me a little bummed that I would have to wait until Monday to go back up. I need to give all credit and praise to God. I prayed this morning that He would give me ability and knowledge, and He clearly answered with an almost-miraculous improvement in my takeoff and slow flight. I feel really cool after a lesson like today's, but so little of it is really me. I couldn't do this without Almighty God making it possible.