Woke up at 9:52 A.M.  After flying 10 hours over the weekend, I told Van last night that startin' a bit later wouldn't hurt me at all!  I headed over to the FBO at 10:30 A.M.

It was awhile before we headed up, though.  I played Crokinole against Van (and kicked some butt, I might add) and even did some King videos in the afternoon.  Tryin' to get those done with.  I wasn't sure if we were goin' to go up today, but...

Van and I headed up in the middle of the afternoon.  It was rather windy, with winds at 170 at 20 knots gusting to 25, but I'm pretty much used to that by now!  It's funny...before comin' out here, I would never fly in that stuff.  Now I wake up and almost expect it.

We climbed to 3500 with a very bumpy ride.  The gusts were havin' their way up here!  We were to practice the timed turns today, and so Van had me head towards the Chanute VOR.

I headed that way at 300 degrees...once passing the VOR, I turned outbound for a parallel entry.  And about that time, I really had no idea what was goin' on.  Part of it was because I didn't have too much time to think before we were on the VOR, part of it was because my mind really wasn't there, and part of it was because I got confused after Van told me to turn.  More or less, I lost where I was on the approach plate, and then after that, I was behind.

I soon realized exactly what we were doing, and it made sense, but I just couldn't fly any of it very well.  Like...at all.  Probably my worst flying day so far.  I would do the one-minute turn after passing the VOR, then the one-minute outbound course, then turn back in, and the CDI needle would fling from the far left all the way over to the right.  I had not only passed my course (before the one-minute was over), but I had even overshot it by quite a bit.  By the time I was back on course, I was at the VOR, and it was time to turn again.  I did another circuit, and the same thing happened.  Not good.

Of course, my gyro instruments were covered up, too, and I had to fly via my timer and the compass.  That combined with the 30-40 knot winds had me missin' the course by quite a bit.

So after a couple of tries, Van suggested we land.  Yeah, that sounded good.  He did mention that the winds were a huge factor, and granted, they were, but I also want to be able to nail that stuff in winds like that!  But I suppose I took some comfort in him sayin' that he wasn't completely sure that he would have nailed the course.  Flown it better?  I'm sure.  Nailed it?  Who knows.  It was sure windy.

So anyway, we landed.  And, of course, in good-ol'-fashioned tradition, we had another challenge.  I had us stopped at the first taxi-way, but Van showed me up.  He plopped that airplane right down with the headwinds just past the numbers.  We just kind of thudded on the runway.  Nicely done.

We went in and spent quite a bit of time on the holding pattern elements.  And frankly, I understand it all!  I know what to do on paper, I know what to fly, how to turn and whatnot, but I'm just not proficient in the air yet.  It's rather frustrating, but it's where I'm at.  Even Van was confused as to how to teach me!  I mean, I know it!  It's just up to me to fly it.

Went into town and did my laundry.  I hate that stuff.  I took my laptop to do some more King Videos, but the background noise was too loud to even hear what was goin' on.  So I went over and got a haircut next door instead...while my clothes were dryin'.

Was supposed to go out tonight with a friend, but that was canceled.  Too bad.  I now had four or so hours to kill before bedtime.  What to do, what to do...

I ended up studyin' some more tonight and just forced myself to finish the King Videos (after a month of watching them!).  So all of the 900+ questions have been answered at least one time by me.  I have seen all that is on the Written Test...now it's just a matter of bein' confident in all of it.  I'll take some practice tests to see how I do before goin' in for the real one...

Not an overly bad day, but it wasn't good by any means, either.  A day of flying that I would just as soon put behind me.

Was more than happy to hit the sack at 10:50 P.M.