Solo flight - Anxiety (I'm not a student, tho maybe I should be)

Just for completness. If you have a couple of bad landings the best way to shake them off is to be objective about what you did wrong. Don't just get upset. Use it as an opportunity to self-analyze and rerun the tape in your head how you felt on approach and and what you did over the runway. Then go back out right away and put in ten solid ones.

Btw. PIO is nose wheel hits first then slams the mains down. The nose pitches up and you overreact by pushing the nose back down again and repeat the same thing. You likely already know this and are beating yourself up for letting it happen but it's just a brain fart and you can fix it by doing a bunch right.

Oh yea, and don't go back up with anyone else until you tame your demons flying alone.
 
labbadabba said:
Thanks all! Good to know there is some shared experience in this regard. I'll keep at it.
Click to expand...
Please.... if you think you're the only guy to balk a landing, believe me you're not alone. I'm 600+ hours and about 1/10 is a greaser, the rest range from adequate to "what the hell..." Of course, you are almost always alone when you roll it onto the runway.
 
Any landing that doesn't involve firetrucks, ambulances, missing body parts and blood is adequate.
Things will get better, if you keep at it.
CC268 said:
*facepalm*

That seems a little extreme. Sounds like a normal low time pilot feeling to me. People said the EXACT same thing when I posted on here a while back when I was talking about maybe doing some aerobatic training to help with some of my nervousness..."that won't do anything for you", "you should just fly your airplane", blah blah blah. Every time I fly I gain more confidence and experience. The only way to cure the feeling is to fly, fly, fly...
Click to expand...


Not extreme, just the facts of life.
The point is that whatever you decide to do, make sure it's the best fit for you. There is no shame in cashing in your chips and walking away.
 
Shepherd said:
Any landing that doesn't involve firetrucks, ambulances, missing body parts and blood is adequate.
Things will get better, if you keep at it.



Not extreme, just the facts of life.
The point is that whatever you decide to do, make sure it's the best fit for you. There is no shame in cashing in your chips and walking away.
Click to expand...

I understand...I'm just saying that giving up on flying because your nervous flying solo as a low time pilot sounds ridiculous to me. Anyone who tells you they were never scared or nervous at any point in their flying "career" if full of it

Edit: unless your James
 
Pilots also tend to be very self critical and perfectionist type people, for the most part, in my experience is what I've found. A lot of times what *feels* like a sloppy landing to us may be perfectly fine or even considered good to others. The old "if you can use the plane again" thing

Definitely sounds like you're on your way though to being a safe pilot, feel like most people in the "I'm-licensed-and-have-just-over-100-hours" camp tend to be on the opposite end of the spectrum
 
i'm going to deviate a little from the general consensus -- i.e. going on cross countries. I know all of us have bad days occasionally, and all of us screw up a landing once in a while, no matter how many hours (and landings) are in the log book. Since you obviously like training and challenging yourself, I suggest you take a few hours of aerobatic training, maybe a 5 hour course or so. You will learn a lot more about flying an airplane and working with the airplane to make it do what you want it to do than you will by going on hamburger runs. Don't be too hard on yourself, though. We all perform less than perfect sometimes.
 
Hey, they can use the airplane again! You had a bad one, no sweat. Listen, don't count your hours so seriously, either. A couple hundred hours of crash-and-dash, with plenty of landings, and configuration changes, are as valuable as 2,000 hours of straight-and-level, as far as stick-and-rudder skills go.

And per previous post, some acro is a good thing - it's fun, I think, and builds confidence. . .
 
citizen5000 said:
I am the exact opposite. I only tolerated the training in order to fly alone. Nothing beats the serenity and self satisfying experience. You seem to prefer the training and not so much the flying.
Click to expand...

This matches my thoughts exactly. On a clear and a million type day, I always go fly a XC as that is truly flying. Maybe take a break from maneuvers and other training type things and go enjoy a real fight! In all honestly, you will end up doing almost all the maneuvers you would on a training type flight( minus maybe a few) on a XC.

I always felt I trained to get my license and now that I can use it I want to fly for fun!
 
"I kinda want to just call one of my CFI buddies and go do some steep turns and some power-off landings knowing that I'll ace them."

Your initial experience has 'faded' for those maneuvers, now you're on a learning plateau trying to regain those particular skills. Don't stress about it. Heck, why not get a Flight Review and tell the CFI those are what you want to concentrate on? Kill two birds with one stone.
 
paflyer said:
Please.... if you think you're the only guy to balk a landing, believe me you're not alone. I'm 600+ hours and about 1/10 is a greaser, the rest range from adequate to "what the hell..." Of course, you are almost always alone when you roll it onto the runway.
Click to expand...

:yeahthat: I was working at the airport one day this beautiful G5 landed and taxied in. When the crew came in I asked if I could have a look inside. He turned to me and said "Yes as long as you don't tell anybody about that landing". The FO just rolled his eyes and walked away. The funny thing is, watching the landing I didn't see a problem with it. Trust me I've seen and made worst. I guess my point is that we can be so hard on ourselves trying to be perfect, that we make matters worst. That is why everyone is saying to go fly somewhere.:yes: You know the maneuvers and proved that you have mastered them. After all they gave you a PPL...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top