Checkride

I had another checkride today. Lesson 15 was on the agenda and was dealing with navigation. VOR tracking and ADF. What do the acronyms mean? It probably doesn't matter if you don't need the info. But there are these radio stations peppered all around the country, around airports, near small towns, near little airstrips, even the middle of nowhere. These stations send out signals that you can pick up with special equipment that uses the location of the signal for navigating and plotting courses. It's difficult to explain in a small space, but it's pretty cool stuff that has been around since the 1940's.

Sho was to be my flight instructor, and since he knew that I had only flown twice in the last month, he wanted to make sure that I was comfortable moving ahead and that I didn't just need a review flight. I'm good on almost everything except landing, simply because I don't get enough practice. But the flight went well.

We flew straight and level for awhile, using only instruments for reference, what they call "flying under the hood." You wear a view limiting device that only allows you to see the instruments and nothing outside the windows. It's a strange feeling, imagine driving your car and you can only do it by looking at your speedometer and no outside clues.

We reviewed a lot of material also. Recovery from unusual flight attitudes and stalls.

We headed on back to Wiley Post for some landing work. I came in just fine, set up good, everything was nice. Then the last few seconds became a little hectic. Sho was telling me to do something opposite of what I wanted to do, and this caused a little panic. When we touched down, I explained that what you are telling me is opposite of what I understand I should do on the final part of landing, just before touchdown.

There are differing styles of landing, but I really asked a lot of questions and tried to see something that I could use to help my landings. All in all, it was a good flight and I'm off to fly cross-country!