PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Hope you guys don't mind me posting here but I've got problems
Old 28th May 2006, 15:53
  #10 (permalink)  
shortstripper
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: South Norfolk, England
Age: 58
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Hi,

I started gliding before power and was fortunate enough to find I was a "natural". This was great in the sense that I went solo very quickly, but had the disadvantage that once solo, I was virtually left to my own divices as everyone thought I was ok (gliding is a slightly different discipline in that once solo there little else to teach "but lots to learn" as it's all done pre-solo). I think I must have had a bad landing at some point because all of a sudden my landings went to pot. Nobody seemed to notice but I really started to beat myself up over it. The more I thought about the landing, the worse it seemed to be! In the end I went to one of the instructors (not easy as a know-it-all teenager) and fessed up that I was having problems. She took me up, but rather than bang on about landings, just ran through some upper air work excersises and chatted away. I ended up so relaxed about the whole flight that the landing just merged into what was a very enjoyable 45 minutes. I never had a problem landing again?

The above may sound like waffle ... and probably is; but the point is that if you get to hung up over one aspect of a flight that you're having problems with, you will naturally tense up and fear a repeat ... which almost always happens. It might be better to forget circuit bashing for a while, go off and do other stuff and relax about the landing, which then just becomes the conclusion of a flight that was all about something other than landing. It might just help.

SS
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