The Secret is: "look out, peek in"

Today I took an instructional flight to Easton Airport and back. The weather was a perfect fall day with calm winds. After getting off from Tipton and out over the Chesapeake Bay we practiced some steep turns and some stalls. Up until this time both of those maneuvers had been eluding me and my ability to perform them proficiently. I was determined to do better this time and also to impress my instructor with my landing prowess. I had read up on steep turns and stalls and made a somewhat startling revelation. When performing them I actually had to spend a lot of my time looking out of the window and only a little bit of the time peeking at the instruments. Thus, "look out, peek in." Up until that time I was trying to fly a steep turn by "flying the gauges" and not really looking out of the window. Since I'm supposed to be a VFR(Visual Flight Rules) pilot, that means I'm supposed to look out of the window and get my control queues visually. Once I started to do this I saw an immediate and positive improvement in my steep turns and stalls. It was a great confidence booster to actually be flying more proficiently.

Once we got over to Easton we worked on Short and Soft Field Takeoffs and Landings. It was the first time I had worked on them but all in all I think I did OK for the first time. They were skill testers but I found my stress level to be low. So far the only thing that has gotten me worked up was the "recovery from unusual attitudes" in simulated IFR conditions.

I also find myself having to grab the bottom of the seat when my instructor takes control of the airplane. It's all I can do to keep myself from reaching out and grabbing the controls.

Tomorrow we are going to fly over to Suburban Airport which is just a short hop to the West to fly some more "Shorts and Softs."