CFI-A Lesson 10 (Warm-up)

With my next lesson scheduled for Thursday morning, I scheduled a plane with another student today to practice all maneuvers. I scheduled from 3:00 - 6:00PM, knowing that I'd have the airport to myself when I got back, and smooth skies during the flight. I scheduled it for three hours so that all time pressure would be removed. I brought along another CFI student because A) it's good to have a peer review you because he may see things that you miss and B) I've never flown solo from the right seat, so I wanted a pilot in the left seat, just in case.

We started our flight by doing a soft field take-off and climbing to the east over the Indian River. At 1,200 feet, we turned north and flew along the beach for a while. Oh how nice it is to just fly along enjoying the scenery. We turned west just south of Sebastian and headed for the practice area.

I went through my entire repertoire of maneuvers and headed back for the airport. On the way back, we were cleared the straight-in approach to runway 11L and told to report a four mile final. At the VOR, I was just about to report in when the tower told me that I had traffic at my six o'clock - a Challenger jet. Cool!! The jet was aligned with runway 11R, so I slowed down a little and let it pass us on the right at our altitude. It wasn't as cool as seeing a Boeing 747 or 777 up close, like at Paine Field in Everett, WA, but it was as cool as it gets in Vero Beach.

I practiced all the landings types and a couple power-off 180 degree landings and called it a night. Overall, a very fun, confidence-building flight.