Another Long Flight

I flew with Erin again this morning. We went up and practiced a couple in-flight diversions. Basically, it's preparation in case we're ever faced with a situation where we're not able to go to the airport we'd planned on landing at. For instance, if a squall line moves in over our destination, we're not going to be able to land there. And, assuming our trip has been longer than a simple local flight, we're not going to want to go all the way back to where we started from, so we divert to an alternate airport. There are some calculations that have to be made and some figures to jot down, while still flying the plane, and the point is to make sure we know where we're going, make sure we know how to get there, and make sure we've got enough altitude and enough fuel to make it.

We did two diversions today. Erin said I did fairly well, in that I maintained some control over the plane while doing my calculations. Some students just let go of the yoke and focus solely on their paperwork, which can spell disaster if they ever do that on a solo. I tried to split my attention between the plane, the paper, and my flight computer. It wasn't necessarily pretty; there was alot of turbulence today, so everytime I let go of the yoke for any amount of time at all, the plane would bounce all over the place. But I got the diversions done and would have been able to get to an alternate airport had it been the real deal, so I'm happy.

Unfortunately, the turbulence made for some ugly traffic patterns on my part, which makes Erin hesitant to let me solo again. She wants to see that I can make pretty patterns and put the plane on the ground in a competent manner before she'll let me go it alone again, even though I have Joshua's endorsements and Belinda's approval. It's probably just my pride that makes me chafe at that a bit. Erin is just trying to make sure I'm safe and that I'm doing my very best, and with the right measure of humility, I'm grateful to her for that. She did tell me, though, that if I can show her good patterns on Monday morning, she'll step out and let me go up alone again.

We're still going to shoot for Tuesday as our Tucson day. Erin is going to try to rearrange things a bit so her 9:45 and her 8:15 switch times. Her 9:45 is a very light little twig of a girl, so having her in the back seat will most likely not overload us. And that's the goal, baby! Here's praying it pans out right.

Speaking of light little twigs, Joshua (former flight instructor) came over for dinner and card games last night. It was really alot of fun. (We had worried that we wouldn't be able to watch game 4 of the Series, but it was called on rain anyhow, so no loss there.) Jen and I tag-teamed on a crockpot of turkey chili, and Jen made a loaf of wheat bread, since she knew Joshua prefers wheat to white. And we had some frozen brownies for dessert. If you've never eaten a frozen brownie, you really should. They're amazing. After dinner we sat and talked and joked around for awhile, then we played a brutal game of Phase 10 (brutal because I lost, hard). After Joshua schooled us in that game, we moved on to Quitch (thank you, Phil and Cathy, for giving that to us) which was a hilariously good time. Then we had a short time of prayer and sent Joshua on his way. It was a really good evening.