DarkSarcasm

If you take a look at my blog, you will find a lot of posts with me lamenting the fact that something I thought I had gotten the hang of last lesson had suddenly fallen to pieces the next lesson. It happens to everybody :) My FI said something similar to Graeme's - "Nobody's born knowing how to fly an aircraft, we all learn by up". So just remember that every time you make a mistake you're getting more experienced at how to deal with it which can only be good experience in the long run :)

Yep, it can be hard to get in so once you break into it, book lessons well in advance. I've started booking lessons about a month in advance - at the moment I'm actually booked through until the end of April (3 missions p/w). When I started lessons I was booking as I went and sometimes it was 2-4 weeks between lessons so I've gotten into the hang of just booking a month at a time. And as Graeme said, if it's busy that means it's popular and people must be pleased with the quality of instruction there. :) Since we're all talking about times, I drive 30-40 mins each way and it's worth every one. :)

In what sense?

Alas, I fear I may have restarted this debate with my earlier post. Oh well. I know that you're all trying to help and (some of you) truly believe that what I'm doing may well get me into trouble someday. I like discussion, I like hearing other people's opinions but no matter what you say, I'm not going to change my technique. Why? It's being taught to me by a qualified instructor, who I trust. I use the technique every time I fly, it makes sense to me and it works. :)

And therein lies the problem I think, we seem to be (once again ) getting stuck into 'one camp or the other' and forgetting that when we fly we use the throttle and the elevator together to do what we want. In my mind, power controls speed, elevator controls attitude. Ok, cool. But when I'm bashing along at S&L, if I want to do something, say climb or descend, I don't just move the stick and hope for the best, I move the stick and alter the power accordingly to what I want to do - I use them together to achieve my aim. For example, if I want to descend, I use the stick to lower the nose and adjust power so I don't end up hurtling towards the ground at a ridiculous amount of knots. I know I'm comparatively inexperienced in this whole flying caper, but I'm not sure how that approach is wrong... :confused:

Just to clarify, are you saying that power for speed, elevator for attitude can only be used in heavier aircraft, in light aircraft it is always power for attitude, elevator for speed? :confused: If so, I disagree since I fly a Jab and use power for speed, elevator for attitude and it seems to work...

If that doesn't work, try a cushion

I fly a 160 and do roughly 65-70kts on approach too, if I remember rightly (it's been 3 weeks since I've flown it )

A few from my 2-hour wait at Canberra 'International' Airport today...

About 3 weeks after the stickers were printed, I'm finally back in Melbourne to see mine and all I can say is that it looks awesome! :thumb_up: Had to take a piccie of it on my car

Definitely. I was taught that whenever I do a go around (another aircraft, I've messed up the landing, whatever) to move to the right side of the runway so I can see the runway out of my left window and keep an eye on what's going on :)

I was taught 'final' and that's what I say...except a few times when I've been slightly distracted during my turning final call, not concentrating on what I'm saying, and it's come out as 'finals' Love Slarti's answer too :thumb_up:

paha, I was messing around with my webcam last week and took some piccies. I think I've partly got that piccy up now to see what people say about it. I've been told I look tired (which I was at the time I admit), about 3 people have told me I look 'sultry' (which I took as a compliment) and now I apparantly look unhappy

I think it's more a representation of a sound Maj

That's exactly what I just said to myself when I saw the pic. 'Phwoar that's awesome' :thumb_up:

I'll definitely put the rest up but it might not be until this time next week (I have limited internet here, so I might wait until I get home to Melbourne). There are a fair few awesome shots there :) The spotty beast is good for photography it seems

One from flying between YWOL and YGLB (or d'you want to claim copyright for this one Slarti? )

Indeed yes Maj, but I better not say too much, Tomo might get jealous

I'm still waiting to hear what GraemeK's wife said about that one :stirring pot:

It may not be but sometimes it feels like it. If you've been following my posts on here (or if you just look at the survey above) you can see it took me longer to solo. Overall, I don't mind. I know what my problem was (I think underconfidence was also a factor tbh, as well as being short and needing a cushion so I could land the thing properly) and I got good experience at dealing with messed up landings etc by myself (which is experience I'd prefer to get with someone there to help me if I needed it rather than alone). But it feels like I should dislike it, that I must clearly be a particularly untalented pilot or something. It seems easy to look back on it and say 'well you should've just changed that' but at the time it didn't seem so obvious (guess it doesn't help when there's a foot+ difference in height between you), isn't it enough that clearly we worked it out and I did go solo? I know some people suggest that if you take longer to solo you're clearly not destined to be a pilot (and I guess if it's 100 hours + that's probably right)...but can you sit there and really say that someone shouldn't/can't be a pilot because it takes them 40+ hours to solo? - it's their dream and their money (if they're clearly unsafe that's a different matter, but if it's just them taking longer to master one thing...). Although having said that, I half feel I should be like this now. Once you get your licence, do people still ask you how long it took to solo or is it like when you get into uni and people forget all about your HSC score that ruled your life for a year...?

I'm glad everyone likes their stickers, I have to wait until I'm back in Melbourne to see mine I think Slarti deserves most of the credit for the stickers, without his fantastic artwork the stickers wouldn't be half as awesome as they are. Thanks for your help Slarti :thumb_up:

A cold shiver runs down Darky's back and she wishes that she'd been in the chatroom last night rather than being confused now...

"Did he say we need some sex?" asked McLocks who was temporarily deaf in one ear due to...