Today was a great day to fly! Probably my best takeoff yet - I felt a lot more in control of the aircraft, the climb out felt very natural. We spent most of the day working on VOR technique using the Burbun VOR at Burlington Airport in Wisconsin. It was a lot of fun - Lou is a great instructor. Frankly it was just nice to get into the airplane again, it's been so long. I haven't flow since I took my sister up on the air tour. We practiced intercepting radials, and flying to and from the station. Pretty simple stuff, but I can see it will take practice. On the way back to PWK, we flew to the Northbrook VOR on the 150° radial - that seemed a lot easier because we were actually using it to navigate.
After the VOR flying, we did some more slow flight - I think I'm getting pretty good at that, it came pretty naturally. We then did some steep turns, I really have to work on my sight picture here - I'm still loosing some altitude in the bank - this is another area where Lou says I'm doing well but I feel like I'm sucking. Finally, there was the landing, not my best work, but we landed rubber side down - I guess without more practice, that's all that matters.
I wanted to take a moment to talk about Lockheed Martin Flight Services. I really enjoy (sick I know) calling for a weather briefing. Most of the time, I get a very nice briefer who gives me exactly what I'm looking for and is really polite and friendly on the phone - sometimes even chatty. That was not the case today - I think I have spoken to this guy before. He's one of those people who clearly has no patience for people who are learning, and generally probably doesn't like his job - which is not the place to be in this economy. I normally would chock it up to having a bad day, but I'm pretty sure (based on his voice and absolute insistence that I give all my times in ZULU) that I have spoken to him a couple of times before. Not only is he rude, but he's less than totally forthcoming with information. It makes the whole experience bad when they're not understanding of students - which I typically identify myself as when I call so they understand why I have generally no idea what 'm talking about. I know it's a tough job, and I'm not looking for "chatty Kathy" every time, just a friendly voice on the other end of the line. For those of you at AFSS that are that way - Thanks, it means a lot when you're still learning.
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