Lesson 8 - An "Off" Day

Flight Time: 1.2 hours
Total Time: 10.4 hours

We flew out towards Bremerton again today to review some maneuvers I've already learned. While flying over the "bad haircut" and the West Seattle Resevoir - two landmarks used to line up your westbound departure - I realized that every time I fly on that departure, I'm flying over my first Seattle apartment from when I was living with Brian and Brandon and working for the Seattle Mariners in 2000.

Many of you who know me know that this apartment - in an area of Seattle called White Center - has one of the highest crime rates in the city. Both of my roommates during this time had their cars stolen within a one month period. I avoided a similar fate by disconnecting my car battery whenever I parked the car. Drug dealers and prostitutes were pretty common around our apartment, and a few weeks after I moved in, someone was shot across the street.

It's odd to see the neighborhood from above, because it really does look like a decent area from that perspective.

Typical Flight Path and the White Center Apartment

Once over the Puget Sound, we practiced a few more steep turns, which I'm getting more comfortable with. I still need more practice, but they are definately more consistent than they were last time.

Steep Turns

We followed that up with a little bit of slow flight and stalls. I did terribly today. Rather than stalling, I ended up in a nose high attitude while I lost altitude. I just couldn't get a stall to happen. Ed told me it was because I was starting with a speed that was too high and going into it too gradually.

Today was not a good day, and I just couldn't seem to get my head in the game. Rather than being distracted and wasting my time, I moved on to Bremerton National for a few mediocre touch-and-goes before calling it an early day.

Touch-and-Goes at Bremerton National

Google Earth Map of Today's Flight