So I finally made my way to the Army Surplus store to see if they had any small flight suits in. The other girl at my school cleaned them out a week or two ago, so I had waited for them to restock. ;)
I managed to get a green one, not the blue I wanted, but I'll live. Hopefully they will get a small blue one in one day and I'll be lucky enough to be by there that day.
Have a feeling that I will be just as hot in this, but at least I have pockets for pens and crap.
Today was more solo practice due to the fact it is just too hot to do any dual. As of right now it's 30C, and that's pushing the limits of these little machines, at least with two in it. I usually pull about 18"mp to hover while alone...but today it was over 20". Max for today's temp was 23.2", so add 200lbs of instructor..and well yeah.
Going to head out earlier tomorrow so I can take advantage of the less scorching temps...but I won't hold my breath. On my drive this am it was nice and cool in my car for about 10 min...them it started to heat up outside..and by the time I got there I was roasting. I won't even mention the drive home. YUCK. It made me nauseous.
Oh, and major discovery regarding the death grip hand. First, I got some gloves so my hands would not get all sweaty in the heat making it hard to grip the cyclic...I think leading me to the death grip. Second, I iced my poor hand before I went up. Third, I used 'Sandy', the bag of sand that you can strap in beside you. I'm close to the min weight for the R22 solo anyway, so adding sandy up front really eased the amount of forward cyclic I needed to keep level.
And lastly. I had totally and completely forgotten that I actually broke all the fingers on my right hand at the knuckles when I was in high school. I haven't had to use it ever in this capacity, so I guess now I am just learning about the lasting damage of that little whoops. ;)
Then I iced it again when I was down. It is feeling MUCH better. Also, I think wearing the black gloves forced me to THINK about what I was doing...cause my hand looked different, leading me to assess the grip I was using, and relax it.
Spent a lot of time practicing hovering with a loosened grip, and take off's and landings.
So progress was made!
Oh, and I even braved the scary log landing pad 4 times today. Much better than last time when it scared me off after 2 tries. ;)
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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2 comments:
Nicely done, I remember being told about the pen trick as well during my PPL. I would death grip the yoke so badly that only a pen inserted between my fingers, as if I was writing and biting into my hand if I squeezed, would solve it. Eventually I relaxed enough to fly with two fingers.
Doesn't sound like you have subconscious nerves though, I'd bet more on the old-war-wound theory. Still, the pencil might remind you when you are doing it...
I used to tow those landing pads around when I worked at the FBO, sometimes with a helicopter on them, sometimes without. I always noticed when they were a little off-kilter on the pad and kind of snickered. I feel bad now, knowing how hard that must be to land perfectly centered!!
Oh, and green is the new brown, so I think you're well set on the flight suit.
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