Pitts hours 6-8: Relief and learning curves

Yes! I can do this. Today’s flying was good and fun and I needed it. After my sobering, and downright humbling, performance in the last lesson the confidence boost from flying well and having fun today was welcome.

It was a beautiful day and just being in the air was good. My pattern work and landings were ok and improving, and generally flying the airplane is starting to be more natural and less work. Don’t mistake, my workload is very high but I’m starting to see a slight reductions in the learning curve. I’m having fun and concentrating on not being impatient with my progress.

There is a popular “learning model” that progresses like this:

1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence
3. Conscious competence
4. Unconscious competence

I feel like I’m making the step into Conscious competence and it feels good.

After 15 landings at Cambridge and then Easton, we went to the aerobatic practice area and Bill introduced the Barrel Roll. Having seen so many airshow performances, I’m loving the education that comes with learning what it takes to make the airplane do even a simple maneuver. I’m fascinated at once by how small some of the control inputs and pressures are and by the precision required. I think I’m going to love this.