Day 6

Hop 1

 

Boy am I tired.  It's been a grueling week for me.  Don't get me wrong, I'm having a blast, but I can definitely feel the energy getting sucked out of me.  I've got to hand it to Budd.  He's far more conditioned to this than I am for this type of flying.  I do know that this is what he does, and because of that it's just another day at the office.  For me, this is anything but normal.  I'm sure I'm using parts of my brain I never used before.  Not only that, but I'm processing information in ways that isn't normal for most people.  My brain is in constant state of visual and physical awareness during the 3 hours we are flying.  Every little attitude change, or weight shift is meant to have a correction applied.  Not just any correction, but the right amount of correction, and, it all has to be applied at the exact right time.  Learning how to fly this airplane requires a level of concentration and focus that I've yet to see in any other airplane.  Of course I haven't flow too many other airplanes, but from what I know so far, this is by far the most challenging.

Today the weather was a bit rougher.  This mornings flight wasn't too bad.  The wind was very light but still variable.  I really had to pay a lot of attention to my ground track to make sure I was set up on final correctly.  Just a few seconds of not paying attention on downwind, and I was way too close to the runway.  This resulted in a really sloppy entry to base leg and a screwed up approach which required frantic corrections to get where I needed to be.   Even with these corrections, I wasn't able to be as precise as I'd like to be.  When I set up my slip I was combating the thermals, the crosswind, and perhaps the most difficult force, myself.  I kept over correcting and doing too much of what I needed to be doing.  This little Pitts needs to be loved not screwed.  It seems I was back to screwing it again, and not loving it. 

 

Hop 2

Last hop of the day.  I was supposed to go do some spin training later in the afternoon, but Sonny wasn't feeling well and needed to cancel.  I was disappointed, but I certainly understood.  So, here I am, knowing that this is the last flight of the day, I wanted to pour myself into this and apply extra pressure to make sure I'm being as perfect as possible.  The winds had picked up some, and were a bit more gusty.  They were shifting all over the place which was the exact thing I needed to learn how to deal with.  Thermals on the end of the runway ballooned up almost every approach, and then on the other side was a nice sinker.  All of which I needed to experience and plan for.  Budd is excellent at pointing out all these things way ahead of time so you can be prepared to react.  In some ways I was left wondering if I can buy a Budd to putt in the front seat of my Pitts to keep me safe.  I believe I'm retaining a lot of what he's taught me.  Even if only one thing clicks each day, it still clicks, and is embedded in my brain… Today,  it was my ground track and airspeed.  I did a much better job this hop than the previous.  I had a lot on my mind before getting in the plane this last hop.  I had to force myself to push all the drama out of the way an be in the moment.  Once the engine was running that wasn't a problem.  That is just one of the many things I love about flying.   It requires total and absolute focus to everything that is happening whether inside your plane, or out, you need to be present and safe.

I've learned how to not over correct as much on the roll out, though I'm still being way to dancy with my feat.  I discovered that if I apply a little break a lot of my dancy tendencies disappear.  I mentioned this to Budd and he said it was most likely because the breaks help control the speed of the turn.  It slows it down so that my slow reactions have a chance to catch up.  Well he didn't say it exactly like that, but I'm sure that's what he meant.  The other thing it does is help even up my feet so that I'm not carrying one rudder more than the other which helps to keep it straight. 

All in all, it was a good day, and a better one than yesterday.  I think I'm feeling about 85% confident now.  I know that I still need a lot of practice and time behind the stick, but at least I know I can do it and can be safe about it.  One thing I know for sure is that if it doesn't look perfect on final, I'm going around.  I still need everything to be pretty much right on to get the plane down and under control.  I think that if I was by myself, I would have had at least a few go-arounds today.  Budd worked with me through the troubled approaches to help me "see" things and learn from them so the next time I would recognize them and be able to make better choices and better corrections.   Tomorrow is my last flight with Budd for this trip.  I would love to be here in Phoenix and be able to book time with Budd more often.  I think what I'll do is every time I come to visit, I'll set aside an hour to go fly with Budd.  No matter how good I get, I think he can make me better.   To be honest, that's all I want to do is get better.  Each and every day, no matter what I'm doing I just want to learn and get better at it.  Flying a Pitts has been a dream come true ,and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.