Retention makes the difference between success and failure in the classroom. Retention is driven mainly by emotional and psychological engagement. Your brain must be perfectly and correctly stimulated for you to learn something. Information delivered at a trickling garden hose pace will have you falling asleep at your desk.
I clearly couldn’t hear what she was trying to say to me, so she had the wisdom to leave her ego at the door that day and line up another instructor who she thought could take the same concept and say it in a way that would somehow get through to me. In essence, she brought in another stone mason.
First, we could see the top of the plane and the top tip of the tail through the gaps in the tops of the trees. Then the windshield, then the wings, and then over the whine of the engine there was a ‘CRACK’ and the plane shuttered. The nose rose sharply then sank. ‘CRACK’ ‘CRACK’ ‘CRACK’ it began to shear out the tops of the trees as the nose pitched further and further down.
Would it be VFR by the time I got there? Maybe… maybe not. Sure I’m instrument current, but is that good enough? Maybe… maybe not. It’s legal, but legal isn’t always smart. So, with full tanks I taxied back to the hangar and, after some light ribbing from my flip-flop-wearing buddy who questioned my judgment on such a perfect day, we heaved her back into the hangar.