Today was my first time back behind the controls of a plane in roughly 7 weeks. This semester I'm working on my instrument rating and stage 1 of my commercial certificate. This morning was just a review of private pilot maneuvers, and tomorrow might be one, also. All in all, things went very well this morning. My landings were pretty good; that's the part that really matters to me. When I'm 2,000 feet above the ground and I stink up a steep turn, it's no problem; I can just try again. When I'm almost on the ground and I blow a landing, it 1)makes me a little tense, and 2)means I have to go through the whole traffic pattern again for another try at it. On top of those two reasons, if you recall from earlier posts, I really had trouble getting my landings right when I started my training. Any bad landing now sort of takes me back to that time, and I can get frustrated pretty easily, which doesn't help anything. But today, the landings were good, and I'm happy.

Erin gave me a little overview of the first part of this semester. I'm going to be doing a few cross-countries, almost right off the bat. I have a dual night X-C to Casa Grande, by way of Tucson. I have a dual day X-C to Deming, NM. And I have a couple solo day X-Cs, though I'm not totally sure where yet. I also found out that I'll be getting to keep my 6:45 time slot. That makes me very happy. I really didn't want that time when it was first given to me, but I've learned to love it, and I'd be upset if I had to give it up. I did find out this morning, though, that it's still dark here until about 7:10am, so preflighting the plane and having it ready for 6:45 isn't looking too likely until Spring. I guess I could always bring a flashlight. It would be good practice for night preflights.