Expectations...

Flying seems to have a way of resetting expectations... Or at least mine...and Jeff's too. Jeff is, of course, my pilot husband who has been through this training as me.

I mentioned in my previous post about my expectations for my last fight. Good navigation, good landings, good in the pattern once I got into the pattern, poor pattern entry and poor non-towered airport communications. Any guesses as to how that went?

Navigation... To first airport of three OK. After that downhill quick because I didn't correct for strong winds.

Landing... Didn't even think of the winds.. I scared myself good enough I hope I'll never do that again.

Pattern... Lousy.. The wind thing again.

Getting into the pattern... Ugh.

Radio communications... Ok. Not great but ok. Probably because I approached that portion very much in a learning frame of mind.

Jeff say any time he approached a lesson thinking he had something figured out, he had a similar experience. Humbling he called it. Yes, very humbling.

I think the bottom line is, I am in no position to think I have this all figured out. Not now, not ever. Even my CFI who has literally thousands of hours of flying for most of his life says whenever he gets cocky, something bites him. A little humility in this situation will go a long way I think... I should treat every flight and every aspect of flight with a learning focus, aware and trying to figure out what the experience, be it the plane, the sky, the CFI, ATC or other pilots are trying to tell me.

Then, I can have fun and not worry about expectations. For one thing, I'll do a lot better at meeting expectations when I know I have to work at it. And working at flying can be a ton of fun when I fly with an open mind.