Lesson 62: Worst…lesson…ever

Without trying to be over dramatic, I will say that this might very well have been my last flight.

Mac had told me that: (1) either he or John would still fly with me every few lessons just to see how it was going, and (2) if I missed a week due to east coast travel or whatever, that either he or John would fly with me just to help me get the cob webs out.

So I had traveled back east the week before, and John had flown with me on Monday.  No problem.  Now it was Thursday and I was to do my first full solo.  The idea was to just fly to Ramona, do a few take offs and landings, then fly back to Montgomery.

A day or so before flying, though, I got an e-mail from John asking me if I wanted him to do my second supervised solo per the syllabus.  I didn’t understand what he meant by that, since Mac hadn’t mentioned a second solo check ride, so I Googled “supervised solo” or something like that.

I came across an article by a flight instructor that talked about instructors needing to physically be at the hangar when a student solos to oversee plane preparation, review the flight plan, etc.  It said that a mistake many instructors make is thinking they can do it over the phone or something.  It was mainly an insurance thing.

And so I thought John was simply going to be there to physically review my preparations and plans.

That day I was very nervous, because it was still my first full solo.  I got there early and prepared the plane assiduously.  Then I sat down and went over every detail of the flight plan: route, Class B airspace, Class D airspace, etc.  I checked winds aloft and weather at Ramona.  I wrote down every conceivable radio frequency I might need.  I went over all possible contingencies in my mind.  And so on.

John got there and I whipped out the map and went over all the aspects of the flight with him.  No problem.

Then, just before I pulled the plane out of the hangar, I stuck my head in the office and said to Mac, “You’d think there was something wrong with me if I weren’t a little nervous right now, wouldn’t you?”  And he said yes, he would.

Well, I was nervous, no doubt about it.

I pulled the plane out of to the asphalt, got in, and started the pre-flight checklist.

Then from out of nowhere, John got in the plane.

I was like, “What’s up with this?”  And he told me that he was flying with me that day.

I was pissed.  Boy was I pissed.  My adrenaline was pumping so hard at the idea of flying solo up to Ramona and back, and now all of the sudden John’s going with me?

I didn’t get it.  I stared out the window and considered putting the plane back in the hangar.  I continued on with the check list for a few more items and then stopped and stared out the window again.  It was like a bad dream.  When the hell was I ever going to solo?  What had I misunderstood?  How many times did I need to get cleared for this?

After a bit more silent mental gnashing of the teeth, I said screw it and started the plane. But I felt that huge wave of  psychic let down when you’ve fully steeled yourself hard for something…and then had it slip away.

We flew to Ramona, did three dual take offs and landings, and then I did three solo take offs and landings.  It was fine.  In fact, my third landing was totally cool in that I not only flew an near-perfect box, but I hit perfect altitudes at every turn and had perfect airspeed on each leg.  Very nice.

Then we flew back to Montgomery.

We did a straight in approach, and there was a moderate wind from the right.  I had told Mac a while back that I never get enough right cross wind landings, and that they make me a little nervous.  And so this one did.

We were just about to touch down when I realized that I needed some correction.  As I started to move my right foot, John basically took the plane from me.  No, “My airplane,” or anything like that.  He just took it.  I felt the rudder pedal move out from under my foot, and the yoke leave my control.  It was not something he or Mac had ever done before that I could recall.

We got back to the hangar…put the plane away…and then debriefed.  John said a few things about the flight up and back, a few things about the landings at Ramona, and then he barked:

“YOU’RE NOT READY FOR CROSSWIND LANDINGS!”

Not ready for crosswind landings?

You can’t tell someone they’re not ready for crosswind landings without the clear implication that they’re not ready to solo.  My mind reeled a bit.  What was Mac going to do, tell me that he had mistakenly cleared me to solo and now he had to take it back?  Jesus!

At this stage of the game confidence is everything.  You simply shouldn’t be taking off in an airplane alone if you’re not confident you won’t kill yourself.  And with that bark, my confidence had basically just gotten blown away.

I left more or less thinking, well, so much for that.  I couldn’t imagine it anymore.  I had to either turn back the clock and relinquish soloing until all parties concerned were happy, or I could fly solo with the not-so-nagging thought that I might kill myself in a right cross wind.

I had a solo flight planned for Saturday, but I canceled it to mull things over.

On Sunday Ellen and I flew back east, and it wasn’t what I would call pleasant.  Whereas just a week or so before I had flown back east feeling completely bonded with the airplane, the air crew, and the flying, now I felt like the proverbial stranger in a strange land.  I didn’t at all feel like listening to the air traffic controllers on channel nine, and when I looked out the window and saw the wind sock, I felt rather dejected.

So I spent the week in a mild funk.  I tried getting used to the idea of quitting just before the finish line.  I rationalized: I had flown three cross-country flights; I had landed at Long Beach; I had flown and landed at night; I had landed an airplane over 200 times. And I had flown solo.  Was that enough?  Could I hang up the headphones and look at an airplane in the sky without twinges of regret?

By the time we flew back to San Diego, I was thinking that no, I don’t really want to quit.  I’m too close.  One of the problems, though, is that in order to get my license, I still need (among other things) six more night landings and a 100 mile night flight.  Mac does not fly at night because of some personal issues at home, so I would have to fly with John.  And I am in no mood whatsoever to fly with John anymore.

So I’ve been thinking about my future in flying.  It seems to me there are three options:

(1) Just stop flying.

(2) Find another local flight instructor to do my night flights with.

(3) Pick it up back east when Ellen and I move to Norfolk in June.

So that’s where I am.  It’s been almost two weeks, and I think I’ve reached a balanced state of mind about the whole thing.  I have a meeting with a colleague at work tomorrow who got his license not long ago .  He has an instructor at Ramona, and I might call her to see if she would do the night flights with me.  Also, I’m going back east again next week, and I might swing by the local flight club in Norfolk and see how difficult it would be to simply pick it up back there.

That’s where I am.  Expect a break as I sort through things and figure out what to do next.