Day 22 - Back To Square One

Whatever I did today, it wasn't flying. Oh we flew alright, but I didn't fly the airplane: it flew me. As part of my checkride I have to demonstrate a power-off stall, or basically a manuever in which I reduce the throttle on the airplane and pitch back until it completely stops flying. At this point, the nose falls and you have to recover. The catch is that, at the point of the stall, or the "break," you have to be in level, coordinated flight and cannot use the ailerons to do so. Performed correctly, the nose will fall straight-down and the airplane remains level. However, if one wing falls to the side, you stand a very good chance of entering an unrecoverable spin. Basically, kaboom. Game over.
The control that this requires is insane. It's like trying to ride a unicycle on top of a basketball. I tried time after time after time today and could not do an effective stall and recovery. As soon as the aircraft gets squirrely, I lock up. Panic. I completely freeze. Not to mention that I can't keep it coordinated and nearly killed us on several occasions today. The left wing fell and the instructor had to catch me every single time. Had he not been there, I'd have spun the airplane and crashed, there's no doubt in my mind. I got so frustrated and mad at myself. I felt (and feel) completely useless; unworthy of calling myself a pilot. It's a simple maneuver that you learn as a private pilot, and I can't even do it. What am I going to do when we get to the hard stuff? I was so disgusted with myself that towards the end of the flight I screwed up a single-engine approach, and set the stall warning horn off just a few hundred feet above the ground. There again, in a real situation, I'd have probably crashed.
I'm beginning to wonder again if I'm even cut out for this. Today's flight was pitiful. I freely admit that I got scared several times, and just wanted out of that airplane. I can do this stuff in the simulator all day long, but it's completely different in the airplane. I do a poor job of keeping it coordinated, leading to a dangerous flight condition. Or, I get scared by something, and then completely lock up. If I can't master this, how am I going to pass a checkride? Worse yet, how am I going to be a safe, successful, and effective pilot if I panic and freeze in the airplane? I'm literally right back to square one, learning to fly all over again, and figuring out whether or not I have what it takes to do it.
I honestly don't know what the answer is. We're going back up tommorow, but who knows. I'm feeling really down about myself right now, and wondering if I can even do this. And if it's worth getting killed over.
The lone ray of sunshine came from the supper that Joey treated me, the two other pilots, and his two daughters to. After putting the airplanes to bed for the night, casting off the bow lines, and getting a tug to escort us out of port, all six of us piled up in the limo and set sail for a local Mexican restaurant, with your's truly at the helm of the land yacht. I feel sorry for the poor machine. I honestly don't see how it pulls itself. Apparently Joey doesn't either. As we sat down to eat, he issued an extremely humorous, if prophetic, statement.
"Well," he said, "the good news is that we don't have to worry about getting back to the airport."
"Why's that?"
"We probably won't make it," was his very dry, and matter-of-fact response. I laughed until I nearly fell out of the chair. I was not, however, laughing on the way back to the airport when smoke began to roll out from under the hood of the tired ol' Caddy, and strange noises akin to felines being tortured became audible in the cab. "Mayday!" I exclaimed. "We're goin' down!"
I wrestled the monster in to an abandoned gravel lot, and it lumbered to a halt. She rapidly regurgitated six bodies, intersparsed with belches of smoke and steam. In the dark we were unable to see exactly what malfunctioned (we conjecture a belt failure of some sort), but the thing still ran. We had to do without air conditioning and power steering in order to limp the herculean sled back to the airport, but it got us home. Oh, and if you think driving that tank without power steering was fun, think again.
So that's the day in a nutshell. I apologize for the length between updates. It's been a busy few days, with some rather bad events (not directly involving me, until today). I'll try to be more diligent with my postings in the future. However, at this rate, I'm not sure just how much I have to post. Maybe one day I'll learn to actually fly an airplane.


Heh. We'll see.

Joey