Lesson 14- 3.12.12 Trials with trimming

"Frustration, although quite painful at times, is a very positive and essential part of success."
                                                                 Bo Bennett

It had been two weeks since Shane and I had our last lesson.  Less than favorable weather and busy schedules had kept us grounded.  On one hand I kind of enjoyed the break from it but on the other hand I knew that I was going to probably pay for it.  When I was teaching, January was always the most frustrating month because Christmas break was enough time for my kiddos to regress.  I always hated to do progress monitoring with them in the weeks following Christmas, and wished I was allowed to throw January's results out.  I was actually kind of nervous when I got to the airport yesterday, because I wondered how much I had regressed.

Yesterday's nice weather wasn't in the forecast and a lesson wasn't in our original plans.  Shane called late afternoon about flying, and even though I wasn't really mentally prepared I went anyways.  Shane had preflighted the airplane by the time I got out to the airport so I jumped in.  Once we were belted in I started the checklist.  The checklist went well even though I was a bit rusty.  Once the checklist was complete we started to taxi towards one six.  My taxi went well, and I kept the airplane on the center line which was something I struggled with initially.   We got to the turn around, did our run up, and then we were ready to go.  I had a fairly good take off which was reassuring since that is an area I've struggled with.  I had to really work at getting the right rudder to perform how I wanted it to and it still wasn't textbook.  I'm ok knowing that it's a skill that I need to perfect.  My take offs have really come a long ways, just ask Shane.  The poor guy has had some pretty hairy rides when I've taken off in the past. 

Once we got in the air it was a bit bumpy, but the higher we climbed the smoother it got.  I used to hate any sort of turbulence when we'd go flying, but now that I know more about how the airplane works it really doesn't bother me (at least the mild bumps anyways).  The plan was to work on some slow flight and flying while looking out of the airplane instead of at the instruments.  When Shane and I first started the lessons I looked outside of the airplane lots.  Once I learned the instruments I became a bit obsessed at keeping them precisely where they needed to be.  This quest for perfection really began to eat up all the time I used to look outside of the airplane.  Once we were at our desired altitude, Shane had me look at the nose of the airplane and complete turns without looking at the heading indicator.  It actually made me a bit dizzy at first, but once I got the hang of it I remembered how enjoyable it was to have a bird's eye view of the world.  We worked on this awhile before moving on to changing altitudes and leveling off. 

The next part of our lesson was less than perfect.  Shane had me climb to a specified altitude and level off.  I knew exactly what I need to do to carry out his direction but actually carrying it out was a different story. The source of my frustration has been trimming the airplane once I'm at the desired altitude. I understand that I need to trim the same way that I'm pushing the yoke, but the amount of trim I need add drives me crazy.  I think the part the frustrates me is that trim is so situational.  I was struggling with carrying out what I needed to do and Shane kept giving me cues like "your losing altitude," "add more trim," or "keep your nose up."  I know as instructor it's his job to coach but I knew what I needed to do, and his comments were frustrating me even more.  At one point I was on the verge of tears partly because I was frustrated with myself and partly because Shane's feedback wasn't solving any of my issues.  We got through it but it kind of left me a little worried.  This was by far the most stressful lesson in regards to our relationship.   I don't want to look back at this experience and remember Shane getting frustrated with me, and me resenting him.  Hopefully, we can chalk it up to being grounded for a couple weeks as well as having a lesson after an extremely busy day for both of us.  

After a fair amount of ascending, descending, and leveling off we started our descent so we could join the pattern.  We descended to 1,700 feet which is the altitude needed to fly the pattern.  We flew the pattern and prepared to land.  We fought a bit of a crosswind which was pushing us to the right but we had a safe landing complete with a bump or two.  Oddly enough, whenever Sullivan goes flying with Shane he always requests a bumpy landing.   After recovering from some crazy taxiing that almost put a wheel in the grass we arrived at the fuel pumps safe and sound.

I left this lesson with some victories as well as some challenges.  I've come to the conclusion that flying has to be the most frustrating thing I've ever done.  I am determined to master trimming wether it takes me one more lesson or five more lessons. It will make it that much sweeter when I do!  I also know that it will be so rewarding and exhilarating to solo, especially since it wasn't something I ever saw myself doing.