(we're all about bandwagons…)
I was supposed to fly last Wednesday, but the weather was bad.
I didn’t get scheduled again until this morning at 8am, but the weather was 800ft overcast. They’ve promised to do their best to get me done soon, we’ll see.
I was signed off as being done with all my commercial lessons a MONTH ago. Admittedly, I failed a stage check, but this is ridiculous. Ridiculous.
Brief Movie update.
Sideways: I give it an A-. It’s astounding that there’s still an occasional movie nominated for an academy award that’s worth watching. (Or that there’s anything at Blockbuster worth watching for that matter.) It gets points for dissing Merlot. More points for being different yet watchable at the same time. I’m starting to rather appreciate Paul Giamatti. I spent most of the movie unable to figure out why Thomas Haden Church looked familiar, and then Joanna said, “Did you know that this guy was on Wings?” Right. The mechanic. Overall, I didn’t think it was extraordinary, but I did think it was good and enjoyable. My only serious complaint is that I still have no idea why it’s called Sideways.
Coffee and Cigarettes: B. This film consists of a series of disconnected scenes, filmed in black and white, where the only common thread is coffee and cigarettes. It even has Tom Waits! It’s funny, in a strange sort of way, hardly unpleasant, and is most definitely different. I think that Ben would probably enjoy it.
I Heart Huckabees: B+. Loved both by existential wannabes (who take it seriously), and those of us who’ve had enough of existential wannabes, and laugh at it. Genuinely funny.
The Matchmaker: B-/C+. The DVD was so badly scratched that we couldn’t watch the ending, but I doubt it contained any surprises. Set in Ireland, so subtitles help. Hardly a wonderful premise, but it was at least well executed.
I had my second six-month evaluation yesterday. We’re scored on a range from 0 to 4, with 2 being “Satisfactory.” Last time I had all 3’s with one 2 in Knowledge and one 4 for Attendance. This time I had more 2’s (in things having to do with speed, efficiency, and judgment, since I’ve been shifted around to doing new things several times before I can get used to them rapidly) and a whole lot of 4’s (in things like consideration, cooperation, and teamwork). I also moved up a notch in Knowledge.
So, anyway, I got another 50 cent raise, which brings my hourly wage to $9.
Actual Fact:
In 1893 a priest named Casimir Zeglen invented the first usable bulletproof vest made from 1/16th inch steel plate sewn into layers of tightly woven silk. But he didn’t have much financial success with the vest. At one point, he contacted President William McKinley’s secretary, who scheduled an appointment to demonstrate the vest in a month. But only two weeks later, McKinley was shot in the chest twice.
And I’m still not a commercial pilot. A bit of a setback– while I passed the oral part of my stage check, missing only a handful of questions, the flight portion didn’t go as well. Mostly because I only had 9 hours in this type of aircraft, and I’d never flown the specific aircraft.
The first part consisted of cross-country testing. I’d planned a cross country, flew it long enough to prove that I can calculate groundspeed and give a time to next checkpoint estimate. Then I’m told to head somewhere else. In this case, my examiner picked a grass strip. While I flew right to it, I couldn’t spot it. I told him that I should be right over it, but couldn’t for the life of me point it out. We were indeed right over it. It looked more like a driveway than a runway. He was happy enough with that, and we arrived over the point within one minute of my estimate.
Then came the maneuvers, which ranged from excellent to mediocre. My lazy eights and stalls were excellent. Steep turns and steep spirals were passing, though not beautiful. I had some trouble maintaining altitude on the entry to slow flight. I didn’t get slow enough on my Chandelles.
Mostly I just felt rusty and uncomfortable. My Eights on Pylons were crap, mostly because I picked points too close together. I also had trouble keeping the plane coordinated, the rudder pedals were all sloppy which just made it hard.
I performed an adequate soft field landing, only I forgot set the prop full forward before landing. After forgetting the same thing during my botched attempt at a short field landing (I turned final too early, wound up too high. Not really sure why…), he decided enough was enough and to head back to Norman.
I feel like I’d probably do fine now that I’ve gotten some flight time. But now I have to wait around for another flight lesson, then another stage check, then a check ride again.
It’s looking like end of July at best before I’m done with everything.
At least it’s not hot here yet. We still haven’t had to turn on the air conditioner. It looks like we’ll have made it through April without it just fine. High today was 72. High tomorrow is 54.
Photos are up (see the photos page in the links section of the sidebar). I should probably write about and/or add captions. Perhaps later. A picture’s worth a 1,000 words, right?