Weds
The instructor has run out of things to teach me. I'm too good at flying a plane. I have to do 18 hours for JAA before I'm allowed to go solo no matter how good I am, but my instructor has nothing left to teach me. He did actually find out he could do S turns as he'd missed them out. It's relatively self explanatory, except that it needs quite a steep rate of turn, and your wings have to be level in the middle of the S when you're over your reference point, which in this case was a road. So my instructor showed me one and then told me to do one. He ended up half laughing half swearing as I did it perfect first time, so we couldn't even concentrate on that for a few hours. Ah well.
I've started reading up on human factors and pilot performance, which is basically GCSE Biology with a bit of common sense, things like don't fly when you're on drugs and it takes an hour for the human body to break down alcohol, REM sleep and the like. Hopefully I can take that soon as it's one of the smaller modules.
A guy who started on the same day as me and is going tomorrow did his solo today. He hasn't taken his exam though so he was good to be sneaky enough to do solo with that going unnoticed, he came in nice and wet, but luckily he'd ordered a t-shirt a few days ago that had arrived at the school that very day, so it came in rather handy.
When I got back it was really really hot so I went in the pool for half an hour and then read my book outside for another half an hour in an attempt to get rid of the severe tan lines I have acquired through the mix of excessive sunshine and wearing tshirts. Hopefully I should be going solo either Friday or Saturday.
Thurs
Ok so I worked out that I need 2 hours and 4 minutes before I fill my 18 hour requirement so I spent today getting that sorted. It was mostly Traffic Patterns and t/gos to try and finally get that flare thing sorted. I managed to do 3 really good landings during my time. In the afternoon there was a really strong crosswind so I spent most of my landings just trying to stay in line with the runway let alone actually landing the thing smoothly. Then I found out I had to do another test that I wasn't even expecting before I could go solo. But this was less of a test and more just find out the answers as I could take it away and ask other people so I got that sorted. Though it was all about flying in the US and my study is based on flying in the UK.
Friday
I was meant to do my first solo today but there were strong crosswinds which make it very hard to land, I did my stage check with another instructor to prove I was suitable enough to go. I did one really good landing and one really bad one during the check but I proved I could land and they make allowances for crosswind difficulties so it's all ok. I'm going into school for 1000 tomorrow when hopefully the crosswind won't be up so that I can do my solo, and then my instructor and I will get very wet, as they check buckets of ice water over you afterwards. So hopefully by tomorrow I'll be flying solo and then everything really kicks off. I'm 2 out of 5 weeks into my course and I've done 2/7 exams and got 20/45 hours. I hope to get another exam out of the way tomorrow as well, and once you do solo your hours really start to pick up as you start doing 3 hour cross country flights. I do have to try and get navigation sorted though, which is pretty complicated.
I've just been watching a very dodgy argument on some quasi documentary-historical channel-party broadcast type programme (I don't know what it was but it seemed a it of all three), that went this.
Republicans abolished slavery whereas the democrats were against this and made up the confederacy. Insert lots more detailed history about how the democrats were against freedom for blacks followed by: A Black Reverend was invited to speak at some government thing by the republicans, but the democrats did not join in the invitation. This then lead on to how the democrats were out of touch with the American wish of freedom of religious expression citing several votes where democrats have voted against allowing public displays of the 10 commandments, reversal of a current restriction on what can and be said in churches and various other things that a) didn't seem like a good idea to allow anyway, and b) was only very loosely linked to the programme's big thing about democrats and slavery it had been going on before. Okay so you might not care but if no-one else appreciates this I know Chris will.
Oh genius!!! Mr Smith goes to Washington is on TV, and it’s the big climactic bit where jean arthur is convincing james stewart not to give up and then he does the big speech thingy. You know considering he only speaks for 25 hours the publicity parades get going petty damn quickly.
You know every 4x4 here is jacked up at least a foot off it's wheels. It's quite funny in a way. I had something else to say but I've forgotten.
Oooh yay it's the crisis of faith part in the film. Oh wow, it's a James Stewart Film Night
Oh I know what I was going to say. I was watching jeopardy yesterday, I was pretty good at it, I could get my What is Lake Erie and such. The people on there couldn't get Who is Blade or Who is Bruce Banner though in the Marvel Characters, section, which I thought was very disappointing. I love jeopardy.