Flying Blind

Since completing my check ride a few weeks ago I have been flying almost all instrument flights. To practice our instrument flying and approaches we fly out to our normal training areas and are required to put a "hood" on. The "hood" is sort of like a visor that attaches to the helmet via an elastic strap...very modern technology! Of course, we only do this type of training with an instructor on board so they do all the clearing outside the aircraft. After doing maneuvers in the area we proceed to Lawton, OK and practice flying approaches with the visor on. It requires 100% attention and is very technical flying. Despite it being difficult because I'm new at it, it is pretty neat to fly an approach and have the instructor remove the "hood" at the last minute to reveal the fact that you are 1 mile out and lined up right down the runway. I finished the largest portion of my instrument flying this week. The next step is the cross-country flight, which will be next weekend. We are planning a flight to Pensacola, FL with a weather backup of Denver. It will be nice to fly somewhere that isn't here.

In addition to working on instrument flying right now I am flying "Advanced Contact," which is advanced aerobatic maneuvers...basically rolls, loops, and combinations of the two. I had one demo of the maneuvers about a week and a half ago and then was surprised to get 2 solo flights last week to practice the maneuvers. At first it was a little intimidating to attempt them alone, but by my second solo I felt very confident that I could recover from even the most poorly flown maneuver. I really can't believe that I get paid to go out and loop and roll through the air!

Not only are we flying instruments and contact right now...we are learning how to fly low-level missions in academics. We will test on this material Tuesday. One of the toughest parts of this program is figuring out how to allocate your time.

Andrea and Gavin are in Colorado until mid-November so it has been pretty lonely at home...especially for Scout. Andrea thought I might get more studying done while they were gone, but that isn't turning out to be the case ;) It will be nice wto have them back in a few weeks!