Hectic Day
I had a hectic day. My wife is out of town for the week, so the responsibility of taking care of the house including three cats and a dog falls solely to me. This morning, I had to drop the dog off at the vet for a dental cleaning. Work has been slamming me to get a couple of tasks finished for a delivery by Thursday, before everyone leaves for the year. I had a flying lesson today at 3pm. I left work at 2:30 from Garland, to get up to TKI. It's normal about a 20 - 25 minute drive (with no traffic). Today however, it took me about 45 minutes.
Even though I was late for the start of my lesson, it didn't matter. My instructor locked his keys in the his car including the key that opens the lockbox that contains the keys to the club's aircraft. We were able to get going about 4:15 or so by "borrowing" the keys to another Cessna from the other flying club based at TKI. With the other set of keys we were able to get into the plane and "jimmy" the ignition on 733NB. You gotta love the security in these planes!
Anyway, we had about 15 knots of crosswinds when we started the lesson so, landing were going to be interesting.... and you guessed it. That's what we did. I've had three lessons at TKI now and I don't think I've been more than about 2 miles from the airport. All I do is make a rectangular box at the pattern altitude and try not to kill myself on the thin strip of concrete that makes up one side of the rectangle.
I'm getting better. I'm not there yet. But I noticed that compared to last time we had significant crosswinds, a few weeks ago, I did much, much better. So I am improving. Also, I'm getting less nervous about performing approaches and landings. The proof of this is that my underarms are pretty much dry now after my lesson. The couple of lessons I've had prior to today, my underarms were a little moist despite the air temperature being in the 50°F range. After about an hour and twenty minutes, we ended the lesson because I had to get back to the vet's office to pick up the dog.
Next lesson: Thursday, December 27.
Time logged this lesson: 1.3 hrs
Total time: 7.5 hrs
One last thing... my instructor asked me if I had my flight physical yet. This might indicate to me that he thinks I'm getting close enough to soloing that it was worth mentioning. Then again, maybe not.
