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Flying Lesson 8
It looked like we were about to hit the line of thunderstorms dead on... but my flight instructor checked radar and assured mme we had plenty of time for a lesson. He was right. I did the preflight and we took off. But not before I was given an intro to VOR. It is VHF Omnidirectional Range navigation, a totally new concept for me. He showed me a cool VOR simulator he downloaded and demonstrated how it worked. He gave me a very thorough explanation of the workings of the VOR. I grasped everything I could from the crash course. We played with the simulator a bit, and then headed out to the airplane to experience it for real.
The skies looked pretty threatening and the traffic at the airport was light, as a matter of fact there was no one to be seen anywhere. I took off pretty well. We had planned a route to a VOR on a map which would lead us to a nearby lake about 15 miles away. We did this according to his navigational map, it is still a little confusing for me so I won't try to explain it in full just yet. We set the VOR accordingly in the plane and took off. I attempted to stay on course and follow the route to the VOR. My novice flying caused us to stray a bit but after some more explaining and prompting I was able to get back on course. As I said, this is a new navigational concept for me.
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We headed back into the pattern at our home airport and began some landing practice once again. As usual, there was quite a crosswind, coupled with humid, bumpy air so this was another attempt at landing in less than desirable conditions. After a few landings and takeoffs I actually felt very good. The imperfect conditions were no match for me today. I actually landed halfway decent a number of times. My approaches were also showing improvement. Am I ready for flying solo? I don't think so but I have to admit that today's lesson was very beneficial to my confidence at the very least.
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