Before I start, I have printed a photo of one of my oppos at the Ponca Indian tribe annual powwow Just in case you thought my memory was playing tricks again. We even had tuition on performing a war dance.
Back to training. We progressed on to forced landings. steep turns , stalling, spinning, side slipping, and some of these solo. Being able to get away from the airfield solo, was exhilarating. Flying over the Arkansas river, the 101 ranch, and local small towns, free as bird. Total hours that week were about eleven. One mistake I made was on my first forced landing. .Mr DUX demonstrated the procedure. At about three thousand feet he told me to shut the throttle without warning, he chose a suitable field and glided down into wind, side slipping to loose height and when at about fifty feet , just over the fence he opened the throttle and climbed to three thousand feet. He then shut the throttle and said now you do it. I selected a field, and followed his instructions to the letter, then full throttle and climbed away.He said perfect, almost. I asked him why almost, he replied, you picked a ploughed field. I never made that mistake again.
At the same time classroom subjects included , action in the event of fire. forced landing procedure, standard beam approach, determining the beam when no Q.D.M cannot be obtained. Then asking for Q.G.Q and QFE. etc.
I now felt more confident, and was quite enjoying flying, particularly when flying solo