"The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore."
-Dale Carnegie
After a mentally exhausting lesson the day before I decided to get back up on the horse and try again. I knew the sooner we went back up in the air the better it would be for me mentally. If I had days to dwell on my failure I would start to doubt myself. I was a little anxious when I pulled into the airport but seeing Shane helped calm me down a bit. We went through the normal procedures, and prepared to take off.
As I taxied down the runway I tried to put the trim out of my mind and focus on having a perfect take off. While the take off wasn't perfect it was probably one of my best ones. I was thrilled, and now I had the extra boost in confidence I needed. Once we had reached 2,000 feet we leveled off. Shane told me to make a left turn and I was able to do that while maintaining my altitude. That was another extra boost and my confidence in trimming the airplane started to grow. We ascended to 2,500 ft and trimmed and leveled off. Shane's coaching was effective, and I finally started to understand the procedure needed to trim. We went all the way up to 4,000 feet in 500 ft increments. At each reached increment we leveled off and held the desired altitude. I finally felt like I was starting to become more proficient at the very same skill that had put me in to a tail spin the day before. I know that was some poor humor but I couldn't resist.
We started our descent to 1,700 ft which is the altitude needed to enter the pattern. We prepared for landing and fought a little crosswind. The crosswind made the landing slightly bumpy but safe. We taxied to the pumps with no problem. It was a great lesson and the best part was being able to overcome one of my biggest obstacles in flying. This lesson also renewed my faith in that maybe Shane and I could be in the instructor and student roles until solo. We had communicated beautifully and enjoyed the time spent with each other. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because in many ways he's the perfect teacher for me! :)
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