ground school - weight/performance...

Had another ground school class tonight. This one was aircraft performance, weight/cg and flight computer stuff. This stuff is fun.

flying lesson - crosswind takeoff and landing

Flew this morning. Winds were right on the line and it was the bumpiest flight yet. I should have reviewed power-off stalls because when my instructor said do one I kind of went ""duh.....throttle back and stall?"". That would be wrong. Next time will be better. Also got the chance for a crosswind takeoff and landing. That was neat. Getting better, slowly, but getting better.

David Clark headset

I had ordered an aviation headset (David Clark H10-13.4) which arrived yesterday. Excellent! I had to put it on and go walking around the house making a ""zoom zoom"" sound."

flying lesson - emergency procedures

Had another lesson today, we covered:
* emergency engine-off landing procedures (attempt restart, pick a field, ...)
* some (more) slow flight
* landing was so-so, I overshot the turn to final and had to angle backwards a bit, more practice ahead

flying lesson - flying in da hood

Went flying this morning (after discovering a dead battery in my car that kept me from going to boxing). The plane just would not start (got really cold here last night) so they brought out the heater and warmed up the engine some. Kicked over right away then and away we went. Had some chop between 2,500-3,500 so we headed up to 4,000. Once we got outside the ADIZ we did some slow flight, power on/off stalls and then out came the hood (goggles really) and I went on instruments. That was pretty neat (we both came home and they could use the plan again so I'm assuming that was successful). One thing though. while waiting for the external heater to warm up the engine I didn't ""go"" one last time. We were delayed almost an hour altogether. By the time we started heading for home I was wishing I had ""gone"". After landing (some crosswind), parking and tiedown I hurried along to the potty. I wish that they had a potty outside in the plane parking area. Then again, the world is just one big men's room so....

flying lesson - ground ref maneuvers and boinga boinga boinga

Today's lesson (in excellent weather) was ground reference maneuvers. We did turning around a location on the ground and S-turns. Then we did a few touch and go's when we got back. The first 2 were ok. The next was a full stop and I got my money's worth because I had 2 really good bounces (hence the ""boinga...""). This was caused by my lowering the nose too quickly so that the main gear and nose touched down at the same time (which is wrong). Still, I was way more comfortable with comms and pattern flying this time. Damn this is fun. My instructor graduated from an aviation school. When I was her age, I thought the USAF was the only way to learn to fly professionally. If I could go back to that age I would look at going to an aviation school rather than a university. I've wanted to fly my entire life but didn't pursue it once the USAF ROTC said ""your eyes suck".

flying lesson - review power on/off stalls, slow flight

Today (in perfect weather) we went out to review power on/off stalls and some slow flight. Damn this is fun. Only saw 2 other planes out today. Nobody got in my way. Was an excellent flying day.