Ok, so I got to fly again today. It seemed like such a long time since I had soloed (my last lesson). I did, however, have a mishap yesterday. I drove out to the airport thinking that I had a lesson and was sorely mistaken.

Nonetheless, I returned today and met with Brian Jensen for my Stage I check. He gave me some good grades and then some bad ones too. The grades he gave me are indicative of the performance he saw, but the performance he saw today is not indicative of my ability to fly.

There is certainly no angst on my part towards anyone in the issue, but I was just not ready for the type of flight Brian gave me. It was much more structured than my usual flights, but rightly so because it was a progress check.

Anywho, we took off well after a nice taxi and run-up. The tower shortly instructed us to turn our heading sooner than normal to make way for other traffic...no problem. We flew north and followed the perimeter of the practice area. All of the easy turning and level flight stuff was no problem. I even surprised myself with my consistency in altitude and heading.

Then we turned into the middle of the practice area and started doing some maneuvers. We did some stalls and I had a little problem pulling out of one only because I didn't know what he wanted. I thought I was to do another one right away so I didn't throw in power and blah, blah, blah. I'm not here to right my excuses. I messed up because even if he did want me to do another one right away, I still would have had to bring myself back to altitude. Ok, so the three stalls I did went poorly, but we lived through them.

Just as he predicted and pretty much on the mark, I didn't do any clearing turns. Ouch! He so clearly warned me that that is what I would forget. I SO wanted to do well today!!!!

Coming in for the landing was a pretty big flop too. We came in for a 2 mile base on 24. I don't think I'd ever done that. I had always come in for a downwind from the west. This time I came in for a base-leg from the northwest. I was way high and not 200% where to be so it was bad. I had to circle so as to lose altitude and end up in the right place. [Only one more bad thing.] In for the landing looked really good, but then I flared too early. I was coming a little fast onto the runway, but I sunk back into the ground effect and the touch-down wasn't too hard.

The line of the day is "you didn't do bad enough for me to hold you back..." and it really sums it up.