Woke up at 9:00. I felt pretty tired this morning. I took a quick shower, then went over and met Van at the FBO. After a short bit, we headed out to the Cherokee.

The winds were out of 360 at 11 knots. Right down the runway! We headed up to 3500 feet, and Van put me in some unusual attitudes. He would have me tuck my chin to the chest, close my eyes, and then he would take the airplane and do several maneuvers with it. Obviously, I had no idea what was goin' on, since my eyes were closed. Of course, you may think that your body would tell you what is goin' on, but as mentioned in a previous post, your body lies to you. You may think you are climbing only to be in a hard left-hand turn. So Van would put me in some type of situation and then say..."Your airplane."

"My airplane." And with that, I was responsible for looking at the instruments (I couldn't see outside because of my Foggles), assessing what exactly was happening (are we nose-high or nose-low, are we banked to the right, to the left, or level?), and then make the necessary corrections. Of course, the goal is to assess and correct rather quickly...you may be losing altitude at 1000 feet per minute. Or you may be close to a stall...or a spin.

I was able to determine what type of position we were in pretty nicely, and I owe all of that to my previous instructor (when I got my Private Pilot's license). He put me in those exact same situations, and it has obviously stuck with me! Thanks, Larry!

The whole training is to prepare us just in case we find outselves in a situation that we didn't mean to do. Maybe we dropped a pencil or some approach plates. We bend down, stretch out and grab them, only to come back up and realize that we have done something to get off course.

After that lesson, we headed over to the Chanute VOR to shoot some holding patterns (my weakness!). On the way over, Van asked me to go down 500 feet. We were gettin' into clouds. So I went down to 3000. Funny thing...the AWOS (Automated Weather Observation System) at the airport had said the ceiling was at 5500. Liar!

Van had me track some courses, turn to some headings, and we both knew that I didn't have a clue what was goin' on! I told him up there in the sky that I was royally confused, and he seemed to already know that. "Just listen to what I tell you to do." All right! But the clouds kept on gettin' lower and lower. We were now flying at 2000 feet, just 1000 feet above the ground. With some towers around and unknown traffic, it's just not a good place to be.

Maybe you're askin' why I am not flying in these clouds...I mean, after all, I am going after an instrument rating that will allow me to fly in clouds, right? Sure. Sometimes. But we exercised our aeronautical decision making today...clouds equal moisture (that's all a cloud is...visual moisture). And with temps below freezing, that just doesn't make for a good combination. That and Van couldn't see the other traffic in the area if they were out there. Since we were technically on a VFR flight, he has to fly outside the airplane...constantly lookin' for traffic. Clouds kind of took that away from him. So we headed in.

I landed on Runway 36, and the winds were now 350 at 16 gusting to 22. We had flown 0.9 hours. On the taxi back to the FBO, Van noticed somethin' white in the air. Well, I'll be. Flurries. How 'bout that. Stinkin' winter.

We spent quite a bit of time on the holding patterns once inside. Van did everything he could to make them clear to me, but I reached the point of "no matter what else is said, I think I've learned all I can today!" Those days happen every once in a while! It didn't help that I was tired.

The flurries picked up, and we had a dusting of snow on the ground. To "celebrate," I took a 2-hour nap this afternoon.

But not before I did another LARGE part of flight training. I made another payment. I walked a $4000.00 check over to the FBO. ouch! I've been here two weeks, and I've forked out $8000.00 already! Of course, I haven't actually used that much yet, but I have to pay 1/4 down. Do the math. Yup, I'll be payin' more than $30,000 over these several short months. Flight training is expensive. Crazy expensive.

But every day I take delight in the fact that I'm doin' something that I love...that's something that a lot of people just can't say. And with that thought, suddenly, the price tag doesn't seem all too bad. I mean, I hate debt, but my loan will get paid off, I'll have an "office" in the sky, and frankly, I'll look forward to work. Not a bad gig if ya ask me.

Tonight I watched the King videos on Holding Patterns. I've got quite a bit of studying to do this next week. Quite a bit indeed. But with the videos tonight, something finally clicked! I started to understand when to use the direct, the parallel, and the teardrop! After several different lessons from different people, it's startin' to come together! I said starting...haha.

I've been here two weeks now, and I've got 23.3 hours of flight time in. That's pretty sweet. And it looks like I'll be addin' some more over the weekend...Dallas, here we come!

Oh, and if ya want to have some fun, you can often follow me on my flights. Well, only when we file with the Flight Center. But when we do file for an IFR flight, we go "into the system" with all the big guys...like commercial jets. We get treated just like one of them. On most of my early training flights, I won't file. But after I get certified for IFR and on longer trips, I'll probably be filing quite a bit. Anyway, if none of that makes sense, then just go here...

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N98014

N98014 is the tail number on the Piper Cherokee single-engine. You can see the flight path we took last night to Missouri (and even the slight right-turn we took to get a picture of the sunset). And on some other flights I take with Jarryd and Van, we use the twin-engine with tail number N8088Y. Just search for that sometime to see some trips we've taken. I noticed our last trip up to Lincoln, Nebraska, is on there.

It's a fun website, and you can follow all filed traffic around any airport. It's helpful sometimes, too...because I vaguely remember hearing a jet start up during my nap (I had totally forgot about that before writing this). I get up, look out my window, and I see a Cessna Citation not too far away. A quick look at our airport data today shows a Cessna Citation leaving Pittsburg, Kansas, for Alexandria, Louisiana, today. They go down there, come back, and make a stop here in Chanute before goin' back to Pittsburg. Maybe they wanted cheaper gas? Or maybe they knew someone here? Who knows...but it's fun to play around with that website. You can always follow any jet your friend is flyin' on to see their altitude, how fast they are going, where they are at, etc.

Went to bed at midnight.