I had a flying lesson tonight. I felt like I did better on some stuff, but there is something always to add. Pile it on. It takes time and effort. Reading really helps maximize a lesson. One of the fundementals I really have to work on is a good checklist mentality. I am the first to recognize that a pure checklist mentality may not be optimal for finding new things, but there is considerable merit in checklists. In fact, I have a list everyday, every week, and throughout the year for work. Staying on the list is a required discipline. I need to be able to be in checklist mode and, when I need to, be out of checklist mode.
When I came in for a landing tonight there were some folks watching. I went up to them after we landed and they asked "Was that a student landing?", "Why yes it was", was the reply. "It looked really smooth" he said and he showed me the camcorder in which he had it recorded. "It didn't feel very smooth to me.", I replied. The conversation made me feel good. In addition to the ride being a little less smooth, the heat is also always higher and the mouth a little drier in the left seat of a training aircraft as well. I have a long way to go, but there is considerable progress. The ground comes up pretty fast and there is a lot to do and check and "feel". Flying is a great cross discipline of technology and art.
This is a picture of us getting fuel over at Sidney NY (N23), a 10 minute flight from the grass strip over at Greene. It has a right-hand pattern on runway 25 (because of terrain) and a paved runway on headings of 250/70 that is 4200 ft long. It has a AWOS (Automatic Weather Observation System) on 118.27 MHz. We use a traffic frequency of 122.8 MHz for both Greene and Sidney.
