muscle memory

flying is about repetition.
you have to always taxi on the yellow line. takeoff always will be that transition from rolling to flying. the landing has to be a greaser every time. the checklist are always the same, procedures in the air never change. the environment might, but inside the plane, its all about muscle memory and repetition. Thats what my next few lessons are and will be about. Everything from starting the engine to touching down has to happen smoothly.

As a student pilot, i am supposed to make mistakes. i do make mistakes. my lesson today, i confused myself and turned on the wrong taxiway. Im becoming over-reliant on my GPS and MFD, so when my instructor turns off my displays and i have to take out my chart, it takes me a few minutes to find where i am. in a real failure, these minutes are key. thats why from now on, the MFD will be on the engine page for the duration of most my training.

We all make mistakes, and the reason you have to fly with an instructor for so many redundant hours is obvious, make mistakes and your instructor will clean them up. by the time i take my check ride, i am confident ill be comfortable as a PIC. I love my instructor because i am comfortable making mistakes with him now. I am a low hour, pre-solo student pilot, but i am comfortable and relaxed when i fly. This is why i am enjoying training a lot more than some people who write about their training journey. Even though im a bit ahead of the average student, im in no rush to finish my training. I would rather make a mistake with my instructor in the cockpit to tell me, then rush my solo and make that wrong turn while taxing and cause a runway incursion.

All flights from now on are me flying, and my instructor watching. he no longer feeds me information, but instead he watches what i do. sometimes he will question my actions, even if they are correct. im doing a lot of landings and patterns, and he doesn't have to tell me what to do or when to do it. The reason im doing a lot of patterns is because its not easy to smash a plane on the ground while trying to make it so smooth, its hard to even feel. Its the transition from a decent to leveling off and holding the nose up. it has to be just perfect in order to get a greaser, or very smooth landing. If i get 2 greasers a lesson, im happy. my instructor expects all landings to be greasers, and that way when he is no longer to my right, the last thing ill be thinking about is how to land. by that time, it will be muscle memory...