AOPA Project Pilot

Nobody really climbs their "Everest" alone. Even if you are literally alone and literally climbing Mt. Everest...there was a team of people who taught you, supported you and mentored you. In my case, when I soloed, I was physically alone in the airplane, but I also had a support team. Of course, in flight training, the most obvious member of your team is your flight instructor and luckily for me, Paul is very experienced, patient and makes safety priority one at all times. I have tried other instructors and they just weren't the right fit.

Another essential member of my support team is my AOPA Project Pilot Mentor, Diana Richards. Diana actually found me on Pilots of America. I was on a forum asking for help with seeing over the cowling of the 172 since I am 5'6" and have struggled with this in some aircraft. Diana and a few other pilots, including my friend Lynn had a lot of good advice and encouragement for me. Now that challenge is luckily behind me. Diana it turns out is from Southwest Missouri, which is the area in which I grew up. We started to figure out that we might share some connections and it turns out that Diana's flight instructor, Tom Richards, was one of my Dad's (yes, my father is a CFI more on that in a future entry) students years ago. Long story short, Tom and Diana were later married and so now things have come full circle: Dad was one of Tom's instructors, who then taught Diana how to fly and now she is my mentor...small world!! Tom also taught one of my uncles how to fly as well and I have often heard my grandfather (also a pilot) speak about Tom. So far Diana and I communicate regularly by email. I always write after each lesson and share what went right and if anything went wrong....she has been especially good at keeping my confidence up during this challenge. Since my mother and grandfather live very near to her, we plan to visit in person in April and do some flying in her Citabria!! Amazingly, Diana is an acrobatic pilot now and I never thought I would say this...but I'm looking forward to doing some spins and going upside down for the first time in my life soon!! I am very lucky to have Diana as my mentor!

My 2nd Solo!

This morning, I passed another milestone in my mind...my 2nd solo. After my first solo, it just never felt that real, like maybe it wasn't really a solo...but today was a little different. I was still really nervous, but my 2 landings were smoother and I executed a go around when I saw that I wasn't going to be able to touchdown until about midfield (and our field is short 2200ft!). I guess, because I've been in airplanes since I was a baby with my father and grandfather, I just assume this should be easier, like driving a car...but it isn't easy at all...if it were, then everyone would be doing it I suppose. Had a north wind blowing right straight down runway 36 this morning of about 8mph...and other than speeding up my downwind run, it was pretty smooth and didn't affect me much. Over the next few lessons we are going to work on getting me out of the pattern on my own for the first time. So anyway, which is often the case with me, I am struggling with confidence, but I've learned already, that it is just a matter of sticking to it, working through it and talking issues over with my instructor and my mentor (more on that in my next entry). And finally, on a related note, I won a Toastmasters International Speech Contest at the Club Level giving a talk about my first solo and all of my failed attempts to get to that point and what I learned from the experience.

N123HA "Hotel Alpha"

My most recent flying lesson was last Sunday afternoon. The winds were just a little too high and a little too variable so I didn't solo again. But I did do 6 landings with varying degrees of smoothness...a couple were very smooth and one, that seems to have been stuck in my head all week, I bounced a couple of times. I was going to fly again today...calm winds all day until right after school, then they really started howling...so I am going to wait until I know I can solo again...I really want to do 3 or 4 landings on my own during my next lesson...so I am just hoping for some good weather sometime this weekend...In the photo the plane on the right is our trainer: 123HA...and boy does it do a lot of training, seems like it is constantly in the air. I first saw Hotel Alpha in '06. One summer evening Teddy and I were bored and we drove out to the Festus Airport for the first time. We pulled up just in time to see a small plane take off...Hotel Alpha. The sound of the engine and the smell of the fuel unleashed a flood of memories of growing up around airplanes. I felt a powerful rush of excitement and then fear (actual fear of flying and fear of the expense)...because I knew I would have to try again. It has been a long road, but it's funny that the plane that inspired my return to aviation was the one in which I would solo almost 5 years later!