Primarus Fuga

The conditions were finally just right today for my first flight.  It was a beautiful, clear, bright blue sky day with almost not a cloud in the sky.  I mentioned the horizon had to be almost perfect due to the skill that I needed to tackle.  It's called attitude flying which is where certain climb, bank and turn positions are set up based on the plane's orientation with the horizon as opposed to looking at the instruments inside the cockpit.  The point is to learn how to fly without having eyes inside so that collisions and other problems can be avoided.  Flying is tricky because it involves 3 dimensional movement as opposed to just 2 on the ground, so trying to remember an exact picture in front of you on the windscreen combined with keeping a level altitude and turning at a steady rate, while monitoring radio communication and keeping track of airspeed  is like a juggling act while trying to talk and chew gum.    I couldn't have asked for better conditions today and am amazed at the airplane I get to fly.   The Grob has been compared to a German sportscar and I now know why.  The Cessnas I learned to fly on are like old unresponsive 1972 pick-up trucks in comparison and I was amazed at how fast it climbed.  I had to double take a few times out of disbelief that I'm actually being paid to do this and really enjoyed the day.

Last week we had an interesting guest speaker come in to do a quick talk and conduct a bunch of research.  He was a psychologist named Dr. Terry Orlick who has done a bunch of work with elite level athletes and various other professions on how to train the mind to perform under pressure and how to reach and maintain excellence.  He's worked with a bunch of Olympic medalists over the last 25 years such as the speed skater Katrina Lemay Doan.  He just finished with a team of surgeons teaching them how to control their minds and manage stress during critical phases of surgery.  He's been contracted to figure out how to make better pilots and how to raise performance levels on an ongoing basis.  One of the things I found most interesting was his bit on "ongoing excellence".  He used an example of some of the pro golfers he works with and he talked about how in every round of golf played there is always a lesson to be learned or a weakness to be improved upon.  So for example, Tiger Woods may win a major tournament, but in that win realizes his short game is weak.  He said that it is easy to learn a lesson or identify a weakness, but what separates the elite performers from the mediocre performers is that the elite performers act on improving  and relentlessly work on that weakness until perfection is achieved as opposed to remaining idle after the lesson has been learned.  Tiger Woods for example can often be seen out on the driving range after a major win he explained, working on any imperfection he notices in his game.  

The other thing he talked about was the power of being in a moment when performance is critical and how the mind can be trained to block out the past and future in order to "flow" in the moment.  So on a flight test for example, distractions such as past screw ups, or fear of future events and or failure, detract from present-moment tasks.  He discussed a variety of techniques for mind blocking which are useful in a lot of situations in life.      

Alright, that's enough rambling for now.  I've gotta go hit the driving range.