I hate the wind. If I had walked to the Old T's, I would have arrived at about the same time. This is no ordinary wind, either: This is a devious wind that starts up just before my lesson and ends right about when I set foot outside the plane. Stupid wind.
Once again my instructor would be late, so I got to enjoy a 30 minute wait outside the tarmac. As I waited, this unassuming Honda pulled into the parking lot. Out stepped a gorgeous young woman, a slim and well dressed lady with confidence and a peacemaking smile. Such a woman could never be a pilot, no -- female pilots simply do not get so beautiful.
Like me, this attractive young woman was waiting for someone. Perhaps a flight instructor? Would she be the new classmate of my dreams, and we would trade glances as we got into our respective aircraft? No, I couldn't allow myself such luxurious thoughts: As said earlier, female pilots simply do not come this hot. But still, the way she carefully studied each plane as it departed and landed ... Maybe ...
After 15 minutes of this basically unbroken line of thought, two cars pulled into the driveway. One was my instructor's, which I made tracks for. The other was clearly attached to this woman, as she walked towards it. We noticed each other walking to these two cars, and thus the game was on.
Out of the car she headed toward stepped a young, neat, and obviously very rich man. He was exceptionally well dressed, had very carefully styled hair, expensive sunglasses, and a cool that makes Iceman look like Jerry Lewis. She gave him a kiss and they headed arm-in-arm to the tarmac. They were on a date. This rich Adonis would be taking her up for a joyride, after which it can be assumed the favor would be returned.
She then turned to me and lowered her sunglasses at me, as if to say, "This is the man that stepped out of my car -- now who's gonna step out of yours, hotshot?" And on cue, Stephen emerged from his sedan. Stephen is an aging, portly, balding man with thick glasses and a golfer's hat. It's fair to say she won that contest, and she knew it.
Today would be, unsurprisingly, more landings. But first, we'd make a quick trip to Hayward Executive to get my stupid ground school CD's unlocked. Fuckin' Cessna. I give them $400 for a ground school CD kit, and they give me crippleware. I get the first six lessons (out of 20), and to get the rest I have to sit through a sales pitch at a Cessna location. So, today I would be enjoying THAT fine experience.
Preflight went quick, and within moments I was climbing and heading towards Hayward. Because the airports are so close, I had to get clearance to enter Hayward's pattern virtually immediately after taking off from Oakland. We did so (Stephen and I are basically trading off on the radio nowadays) and Stephen talked me through a landing at Hayward's unfamiliar airport.
Having landed on the runway, I made a few inevitable blunders over the radio (such as references to nonexistent runways), and then taxied to transient parking. From there we walked to the Cessna center, but alas -- the man we needed had left for the day. Oh well. Another time.
We departed Hayward with the intent to remain in the pattern and practice full-stop landings on their 28L runway (which does, in fact, exist). At first Stephen's voice was calm, but with each successive failure of a landing, he became more and more agitated. I tried not to let it phase me, but damn ... landing is hard! Keeping all the needles pointing where they are supposed to be is an epic balancing act.
Some of my landings were rough and bouncy, others floated and ballooned, and still others slipped and skidded. No one landing was shining and beautiful. With each following taxi I got a mouthful from Stephen. By the fourth landing, his disappointment was palpable. I could taste its acrid presence in the very air inside the cockpit. It was hanging there, like when your disgusting cousin Rudy lets free a silent fart, and no one says anything, but everyone who smells it knows it's Rudy because he's disgusting. I had farted failure into the formerly fresh air of the cockpit.
Stephen's voice turned somber and almost heartless during the final landings, as if he had given up hope. Each clumsy landing simply confirmed that I am undeserving to hold the yoke in my cockpit, as he would have it. Likely he was consumed in thought on exactly what to write on my logbook to make it succinctly clear to the FAA that I am like King Midas -- any plane I touch turns to an aluminum pancake.
Later in the lesson I would ask him, "How many lessons did it take you to learn to land?", reflecting on the fact that two lessons have been devoted to the topic thus far and I am yet capable of doing so. He would tell me, to my surprise, "Four or five." This is how flight instruction work, folks. Your loving instructor sets out to make you feel like a worthless empty shell of a man on your second landing lesson, even though it took him five. See, somewhere along the road, this abuse makes you a better pilot. I don't know how quite yet. I haven't worked out the details.
By my sixth landing for this lesson, a combination of a sun setting upon the horizon and a complete lack of any half-decent flares on my part ("you flared too soon," "you flared too late," "I would rather eat casserole than have suffered through that flare, and I hate casserole"), Stephen decided to call it quits. We took off once more and performed one more landing, this time at Oakland. (During the trip back I made yet more radio blunders!)
The usual course of events followed, whereby I refueled the plane, then we taxied back to the Old T's. After each flight I hand Stephen my syllabus, and he checks off the material that we cover, and hands it back to me, now aglow with a sense of accomplishment. I handed him my syllabus, and without so much as a word, he glanced at it, and then handed it right back to me. I was about to ask him why he didn't check off anything, but it was already clear: We had covered no new material this flight. It was more of the same -- landings, landings, landings.
I held the book in my hand as one might clutch a beloved dead gerbil. I couldn't look at it. It would be like looking into a mirror, and seeing shame. I quietly and discreetly closed the book and returned it to the dark recesses of my flight bag, where it could taunt me no further.
My next lesson is Saturday at noon. A penny if you can guess what it is we'll be doing.
Cost so far: $2,156.76
Time so far: 22 days
Hours so far: 7.7
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