Yesterday I completed the 3 hour simulated hood time requirement for my private pilot license. We worked on unusual attitude recoveries, which I found quite fun actually. Like most of my flights where I had simulated IFR condition, it was pretty uneventful flight…but this time I took my wife, Lisa, along for the lesson. Like flying with my Dad a few weeks ago, it was a lot of fun and filled me with a lot of pride to take another one of my loved ones with me flying. The fact my CFI was there also helped alleviate some of the stress/anxiety Lisa was feeling going up with me (her first time in a small plane and it took a LOT of convincing just to get her to come along for this lesson). She said she enjoyed herself very much and eventually felt comfortable (which is all I was looking for). One small step for man…right?
The other interesting fact about this lesson was that I took one of the club’s 172SP’s for the flight. It was my first time flying a SkyHawk SP and it was a lot of fun. The extra 20HP made a huge difference and the plane had a full GPS pack and even autopilot which I learned how to use. The autopilot was simply amazing, it really made flying the plane “way too easy” and I almost felt like I was cheating using it…but it’s totally cool! We also made it up to 10,000 ft MSL just for kicks, which my CFI said he had only been up to that altitude in Cessna only 4 times before! So, that was neat – totally unnecessary but something fun to say I did.
Anyways, another great lesson and another step closer to my license! I logged 1.2 hours of flight time, 0.7 of simulated instrument time (bringing my total of that to 3.0 hours).
