At approx. 8.38am local time, on April 2, only about 40 years after looking up at the sky at my first aeroplane and thinking "Wow", and only 26 years after quitting the RAAF Academy at Point Cook, I passed my Flight Test in a trusty Tecnam 92 Echo and joined the ranks of the 'recreational pilot' - a lifetime dream come true after 23 hours of training and a lot of sweat and anxiety. It's not fear of flying that makes learning to fly stressful - it's fear of being a beginner again, and having an expert setting beside you evaluating your performance all the time (with good reason). I discovered something during training - my dominant learning style is to be shown a new skill, and then be left alone to practice it, but of course this is impossible in flight training until well after the first solo. I also discovered that, if I had a 6am lesson, I tended to wake about 3am and not go back to sleep, too busy thinking about it. But for the moment, those days are over. I'm just looking forward to some leisurely hours of cruising about the area at a time I choose, with a vacant right seat and no one but the gods to cut the power on me, pop a circuit breaker or flick off a fuel selector. I'm even thinking of reading books other than BAK, air legislation and radio manuals. And loving it.
