Merlin and I went flying last week in the Maule. I love this aircraft - nothing but plexiglass and fabrics. It moves differently than other airplanes and you can see more out of it. We went up at night and I felt absolutely no reservations about this night flight... then again, I wasn't in the driver's seat either. We went up to work on MO stuff for CAP. The Maule had the Gx60 system, which is like the Gx55, but with a communications unit attached. Similar, yet different.
We practiced on the sim on his computer before going up, so I felt much better about everything. Once I got into the plane, I didn't know everything 100% but there was definitely a marked improvement.
Merlin actually had a good tactic - he said he was a dopey pilot and I needed to tell him everything to do. I had set up our course and he was completely off of it, flying all over the map and up and down. I was fearing we'd have a repeat of the time I nearly lost my cookies in the plane and said "Well, for one, fly straight and level. I can't figure this out with you flying like that". He thought that was funny and said "ok, done". Much easier to focus and find things... although I did like the porpoising.
I found the course we needed to be on and which direction, but we were 4 miles out and I was heading parallel to where I needed to be. Ok, easy enough - turn right... But no, no that's not it either because now we're going in a circle. OH! How about turn right and head 30 degrees off course to where we needed to be so we meet our desired course! Booyah - got it!
The next day, we had our aircrew meeting and I had to show everyone what I did through the simulator. I had the knowledge from just working on it the night before and the confidence from that. Also I had a friend tell me that I had a confidence problem. She said I needed to act like the WGP.
"Act like a what?"
"WGP - World's Greatest Pilot"
I laughed. "I'm only a student. Besides, other pilots have told me that you become dangerous if you think like that and they'll think I'm crazy if I act like that."
"I said act like it, don't act on it. Go into that room believing you are."
She actually made a lot of sense. Good idea!
So I went into that meeting room with all of that in my head. When I started feeling intimidated by them, I thought: "I'm the WGP, why am I intimidated?" and stopped being such. I sat up straighter and stopped answering their questions with unsure-sounding answers. I took out the question mark from my answers and put in a firm confident period. Even when I was wrong, I answered the question with conviction as though I was confident in my answers.
It worked. I was answering their questions right and left... and actually even corrected them sometimes. Not in a know-it-all or rude sort of way. Caused Merlin to stop and blink a few times and say "Oh yeah... yeah you are right". So overall it was a pretty good night. I couldn't believe it actually worked to change my thinking like that! Well... I guess I did... I've learned that kind of positive thinking before and how it really changes stuff. Guess it helped that I just reviewed all of that stuff in the plane though too.
This past weekend was the Wings over North Georgia air show in Rome, GA. My first since Oshkosh.
I got to talk to a female F-18 pilot for about 5 minutes!!! She's my age too and it was kinda cool because that was the airport she soloed out of when she was 16. I asked if she flew in the show and she said no, that she was just flying the "spare" F-18 out and then back again. So I asked if there was another spare F-18 I could have. lol
Then there was the Jelly Belly plane in which the pilot went up to 6,000ft and shut off the engine. He did an entire aerobatic routine with no engine. It was really eerie to hear no sound and as he got closer, you could see that the propeller was stationary. There was a guy standing on the runway and it was the pilot's goal to land and give the guy on the runway a high-5. He accomplished his goal and stopped right when he gave the other guy a high-5. FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!
Then, then, then!!! The Canadian Snowbirds flew!! I saw them at my first airshow at Dobbins. They were fabulous. One of the pilots had to land early because he hit a bird. Later, they were signing autographs (I have a poster signed by all of them now!! SQUEEE!!!!) and they said the same pilot hit a bird the previous day as well. Ironically, his call-sign was "Bird". haha
It was a fantastic day. I'm sooo in my element at airshows. Made me a little homesick for Oshkosh again.
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