Day 9 ( 80.2 TT, 5.3 MET )

Had some weird weather over the weekend (or so the locals say) so I had to cancel two flights. Spending three hours a day in class, one hour in the "dead bird" (a cabin section of a crashed duchess that was cut off and is now used for chair flying) and trying to fly once a day. Tons of homework. The flight on saturday was in pretty bad weather, and I lost visual of the runway on final. The instructor had to take over control and shoot the ILS approach. On monday did a maneuver I had never done before, which was an emergency descent. Throttles off, pitch for 140kts, and drop out of the sky from 6000' to 1500' over the ocean, while doing S turns. Scary at first, but then get used to it. As long as you clear your ears on time (pressure changes RAPIDLY), it's actually quite fun. The weather improved greatly on monday so I finally accomplished my first unassisted landing.

Today had the longest flight yet, did maneuvers, and worked on the landings. A second instructor back-sat on this flight, and the performance of the plane was not effected one bit by the extra weight. Weather was beautiful today, awesome sunset and views over the ocean. It's too bad I only had seconds to look at the scenery, staying pretty busy flying the plane.

Below is a shot I took while back-sitting one of the flights.