Student pilot’s diary

Week 1:

Monday: Rain

Tuesday: Rain

Wednesday: No rain; no visibility either

Thursday: Take instructor to lunch. Discover I don’t know enough to take instructor to lunch.

Friday: Fly! Do first stall and second stall during same maneuver. Cover instructor with lunch.

Week 2:

Monday: Learned not to scrape frost off Plexiglas with ice-scraper. Used big scratch as marker to set pitch.

Tuesday: Instructor wants me to stop calling throttle "THAT BIG KNOB THING." Also hates when I call instruments "GADGETS"

Wednesday: Radios won’t pick up radio stations, so I turned them off. Instructor seems to think I missed something.

Thursday: Learned 10 degree bank is not a steep turn. Did stall again today. Lost 2000 feet. Instructor said that was some kind of record — my first compliment.

Friday: Did steep turn. Instructor said I was not ready for inverted flight yet.

Week 3:

Monday: Instructor called in sick. New instructor told me to stop calling her "BABE". Did steep turns. She said I had to have permission for inverted flight.

Tuesday: Instructor back. He told me to stop calling him "BABE", too. He got mad when I pulled power back on takeoff because the engine was to loud.

Wednesday: Instructor said after the first 20 hours, most students have established a learning curve. He said there is a slight bend in mine. Aha–progress!

Thursday: Did stalls. Clean recovery. Instructor said I did good job. Also did turns around a point. Instructor warned me never to pick ex-fiancée’s house as point again.

Friday: Did pattern work. Instructor said that if downwind, base and final formed a triangle, I would be perfect. More praise!

Week 4:

Monday: First landing at a controlled field. Did fine until I told the captain in the 747 ahead of us on the taxiway to move his bird. Instructor says we’ll have ground school all this week on radio procedures.

Tuesday: Asked instructor if everyone in his family had turned grey at such an early age. He smiled. We did takeoff stalls. He says I did just fine but to wait until we reached altitude next time. Three Niner Juliet will be out of the shop in three days when the new strut and tire arrive. Instructor says his back bothers him only a little.

Wednesday: Flew through clouds. I thought those radio towers were a lot lower. I’m sure my instructor is going grey.

Thursday: Left flaps down for entire flight. Instructor asked way. I told him I wanted the extra lift as a safety margin. More ground school.

Friday: Asked instructor when I could solo. I have never seen anyone actually laugh until they cried before.