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I haven't flown an airplane in months. My biennial flight review will be due by summer and I'm so rusty that I'll need some dual in order to pass it. Why am I not flying? Time isn't the issue any more, and if I'm honest with myself money isn't THAT strong an obstacle either. No, it's my confidence.
I know when the problem started. With less than 200 hours in my logbook I began training in the Pitts S-2B, one of the feistiest, most lovable, most cursable aircraft in general aviation. Fifty hours later I still couldn't land the thing. To be more precise, my landings were safe and were even good, but my instructor kept saying the approaches (pattern work) weren't consistent enough and maybe he'd sign me off to solo next lesson. He loved my airwork; my aerobatic maneuvers were good and my spin recoveries were quick and sure. It was just those landings, he said. Surely next time. After six weeks of hearing that, I gave up, my bank balance low and my confidence shattered. From then on I felt I was merely pretending to be a pilot.
Fifty hours! Am I unteachable? Did I merely have an instructor who couldn't communicate to me what he wanted? Did I try a difficult thing too early in my flying career? (And if so, what does it mean that I can immediately and almost instinctively recover from an incipient inverted spin, something most pilots would find difficult?) Have my patterns or landings always been flaky, enough to squeak by on the checkride but not really reliable? Until I get another instructor and get back in that airplane, I may never know.
The question of money creeps in here, as a side issue. This airplane is expensive to rent. If another instructor can indeed show me what the issues are, I'll spend a bunch of money just regaining skills I once had, before mastering those landings. But if a new instructor doesn't solve the problem, it'll be many dollars spent before I know. I'm reluctant to take the chance that I'd just be throwing that money away.
Plus of course the airport with the Pitts is forty-five minutes away, and I'm lazy.
A big factor I can't deny, though, is that I'm chicken. I'm reluctant to risk finding out I can't do it (or can't learn before the money runs out).
I know when the problem started. With less than 200 hours in my logbook I began training in the Pitts S-2B, one of the feistiest, most lovable, most cursable aircraft in general aviation. Fifty hours later I still couldn't land the thing. To be more precise, my landings were safe and were even good, but my instructor kept saying the approaches (pattern work) weren't consistent enough and maybe he'd sign me off to solo next lesson. He loved my airwork; my aerobatic maneuvers were good and my spin recoveries were quick and sure. It was just those landings, he said. Surely next time. After six weeks of hearing that, I gave up, my bank balance low and my confidence shattered. From then on I felt I was merely pretending to be a pilot.
Fifty hours! Am I unteachable? Did I merely have an instructor who couldn't communicate to me what he wanted? Did I try a difficult thing too early in my flying career? (And if so, what does it mean that I can immediately and almost instinctively recover from an incipient inverted spin, something most pilots would find difficult?) Have my patterns or landings always been flaky, enough to squeak by on the checkride but not really reliable? Until I get another instructor and get back in that airplane, I may never know.
The question of money creeps in here, as a side issue. This airplane is expensive to rent. If another instructor can indeed show me what the issues are, I'll spend a bunch of money just regaining skills I once had, before mastering those landings. But if a new instructor doesn't solve the problem, it'll be many dollars spent before I know. I'm reluctant to take the chance that I'd just be throwing that money away.
Plus of course the airport with the Pitts is forty-five minutes away, and I'm lazy.
A big factor I can't deny, though, is that I'm chicken. I'm reluctant to risk finding out I can't do it (or can't learn before the money runs out).
no subject
solo, presumably it was in his interest for you to keep
having lessons and keep paying?
Why should the Pitts S-2B be any different to any other GA
light aircraft to fly a circuit and approach in?
Patterns not consistent? Shakes fist at silly uptight GA
instructor. Glider pilots are trained to fly whatever wonky
shaped circuit is safest in the conditions.
Pull yourself together and fly
that Pitts if it is important to you. You are a glider pilot
after all, show some pride :).
no subject
You're right, it shouldn't be different. It flies much faster and it has the glide ratio of a brick when the power's off. Both are nervous-making for a glider type like me, but should be changes I can adapt to. And I already had my tailwheel endorsement before I started in the Pitts.
I think more like a glider pilot -- do whatever works right now -- than like, say, a 747 pilot -- do the approach by the book because there are no margins for change. I don't WANT to be a 747 pilot. I want to fly upside down. :)
Pride? :) Er, well. You're probably right that I at least need to face it.