I’m done with my private ground school class. This is good, since I doubt I would be able to stay awake if I had to go to class after getting up at 4:30am tomorrow to take Joanna to the airport. Dale finished up talking about Stability today, which is what he started talking about the day I started. So now I just have to concentrate on the flying until I get enough flight time and skills in order to pass a checkride.

D. and I stood outside and talked awhile, and I figured we probably wouldn’t fly. But, I got the weather and the sky was 2700 broken, winds were 15 knots gusting to 21. Below the 25max allowable for privates. D. left it up to me, so I elected to do some pattern work. I executed three fairly decent and one pathetic touch and go. I was getting tired, so I told the tower the next one was going to be a full stop. The winds had picked up a bit, and we were getting knocked around a good bit. D. mentioned that he hadn’t landed a plane in something like a month, not counting his salvage of my landing the other day. I went ahead and let him land the last one, and sat back. I figured it would be a good chance to watch a good landing. D. didn’t do such a good job and we came in way low, skimming across the grass, and then wound up fast at touch down. It was still good to sit back, my feet on the floor, and let someone else fly for a couple of minutes.

Basically, the goal now is just to get me proficient enough, particularly at landing, that I can solo. I don’t feel at all ready yet, but I’m starting to see that maybe it won’t take the 100 hours I was sure it was going to take when I started. D. said he thinks I’m a lot more ready than I think I am. I’ve got just over 10 hours of flight time, and D. said students are usually ready to solo around 15. I’ll probably be a little over that number before I feel comfortable enough, but we’ll see. Basically, I just don’t feel as comfortable at being able to make the plane do exactly what I want yet. But I’ll get there.