pilot's logbook

5/18 C-152 N69011 Lou Lou. Steep turns, slow flight, stalls, Vx, Vy, power-off glide, xw landings. 1.4 hr.

What was better? Mike says taxiing. Radio.

My flying stinks. Constantly behind the game. Can't seem to do anything without losing/gaining altitude or something else, and after that goes on for a while, I get to where I have to consciously process the numbers and the direction of the needles on the gauges, which puts me impossibly behind. I won't let myself get emotionally frustrated, but I think I spent most of today pulling myself away from that frustration threshold to neutral and trying to center up again.

I thought I would have the slow flight/ stall recovery concepts & motions down, but even that was way off. At one point I practically had us in a spin, and I was just supposed to be going into slow flight. I think.

Re-hashing afterwards, Mike asked what I was looking at. I was definitely inside the plane most of today. He said it needs to be 75% out the window with just cross-checks, maybe put a marker on the windshield. Monday I'll bring a library dot to stick on the windshield at 10º.

* Need to study/prepare differently, whatever, so that when I need an answer it comes fast.

This stuff is hard, but not this hard. What's the deal? It sure makes me appreciate when I get in the car and drive it, or when I sit down at the piano and it just does what I want, which almost seems to have been better here lately.

(Hmm...maybe there's a battle for control going on. The driving and piano skills are fighting to hold their territory, so they're getting better, and they won't share with the flying patterns that are trying to make use of them. Is this related to not being able to play Stars and Stripes on the piccolo last week? OK, it's a little too far out, but I'm leaving it in my notes here for future reference.)