I'm learning to fly around the clouds...

I went flying this morning, as anyone reading this would have guessed, as this blog has a pretty simple formula: I fly and then I write about it. This week was the official beginning of my IFR training (that's training to obtain my rating to fly under Instrument Flight Rules, or in lay-terms flying the plane using only instruments in order to be able to fly in the clouds when you can't see outside and also to become a safer, more precise, generally more skilled pilot). Preparation for the IFR rating includes ground school and flight practice in order to take a written exam followed by an oral exam and a practical exam, structurally similar to preparation for the private pilot rating. I often tell people that learning to fly, including all the maneuvers for the practical exam and all the different types of takeoffs and landings (especially landings!) was the hardest thing I ever tried to accomplish in the realm of education. I am starting to think that becoming an instrument-rated pilot is going to be even more challenging.

This morning I spent about 45 minutes wearing glasses that block out the outside of the plane and only allow the pilot to see the instruments inside (aka, "foggles"), taking directions from my CFI about ascents, descents, turning ascents, turning descents, and anything else that is in lesson 1 of the syllabus of IFR flying. I hadn't worn the foggles since finishing up my primary training in April and even then I accrued that time in small here-and-there increments, so it was a strange sensation. I can already see how this will make me a more attentive pilot, as I noticed myself fixating on one instrument at the detriment of others (e.g., making sure my wings were level but straying from my heading or holding my heading but losing altitude), and in order to earn my IFR rating I need to be able to attend to all of them equally. I do believe I will improve my scan of the instruments as time goes on, but this morning's initial attempts left me feeling green - in my experience as well as around the gills as I did get a bit queasy.

We finished off our flying with some patternwork at teeny tiny N07. My landings there are definitely improving, although I still fantasize about gliding the C182 onto the wide, long KLAL runway 9.

Today's flying reminded me of one of the reasons I fell in love with it in the first place, which is that when I am in the air, especially when I am PIC, I am so focused on flying that I cannot think about anything else. And I am someone who can spend a lot of time and energy thinking and analyzing and worrying. I worry about things that are happening in my life at the moment, I worry about things that could happen, I worry about things that have happened and wonder if I could have done them differently. I worry about looking and sounding stupid to friends, family and colleagues. I worry about big things and small things and just-right-sized things. And sometimes I forget what I'm supposed to be worrying about and that worries me, too. I am so grateful to have such a sublime activity which offers so many ways to escape - my worries, the planet, the current hot city, whatever it is at the moment that needs to be changed. Flying truly does change my perspective, not just in terms of altitude or heading or how to do it but also related to what is truly important. Another more poetic way to think about it care of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers:

"Some say life will beat you down
Break your heart
Steal your crown
So I started out
For God knows where
I guess I'll know
When I get there
I'm learning to fly
Around the clouds
What goes up
Must come down"

I think what I do up there definitely helps when I do come back down to Earth and back to real life.