My plane, not yours!

Hey, when I say “I have control.” I really mean it. I got very confused during today’s flight. Bob had me plan a very simple diversion.  He took control and asked me to give him a heading, distance and time to a nearby town.

It was easy. I quickly gave him a heading and made to fly us on that course. He wouldn’t let go. “Give me a distance and ETA.” I ran my thumb along the line “10 miles 6/7 minutes.” I go to take the plane, again.

“reconfirm for me please.”

Ah crap, am I suffering from the lack of math ability again? No my thumb is 2.5 miles, 4 thumbs = 10 miles.    

 “10 miles heading 020,” I reach for the plane, again.

“reconfirm.”

“Look that’s 030, so the diversion is around 020 and that’s 10 miles.” <gimme my goddamn plane> muttered under my breath.

“Your plane, recover”

Huh?

“What’s it doing WMAP?”

Holy crap , that’s some bank angle, ok sort that out; Ok woh! Don’t remember seeing that needle go that high for a while. Yellow- not a good colour

Ah damn! He put me in a spiral. I pause briefly to mutter “you utter b@st@rd!” while pulling the power back – now!

Really though I’m more p!ssed at me. Should have spotted the ASI before doing stuff with the wings. 3 stages to a spiral recovery. 1 power back, 2 level wings, 3 recover the dive.

Like a bad musician, I played all the right notes, just not necessarily in the correct order!

Ok well another reflex gained. Recover = eyes instantly to ASI, that’ll  tell me what to do. Heading towards red = power back NOW.

Lesson learned the hard way, as usual.