Studying Again

I haven't had to really study and understand anything for 20 years. Sure, I research things I am interested in, but only enough to satiate my curiosity. Not at a really deep level where I know the subject inside and out. This is proving to be challenging.

I am using Sporty's Learn To Fly DVD course, and printed out their syllabus to give myself a general idea of what I should be learning when. It, of course, is a Part 141 school and Jeff, as a private instructor, follows Part 61, but it's a good guideline. Part of the course obviously includes watching the DVDs, but there is also a lot of outside material I need to study. I love the Sporty's videos - I find them to be very informative without being too technical. And I love having visual reference. Plus, it really helps that much of the course uses a Skyhawk for training, which is what I am using. I probably wouldn't get as much out of it if I were learning on a different aircraft.

I am also supposed to read materials put out by the FAA. My word. Imagine the most boring lecture you ever heard, add bureaucracy to it, and then type it out into a 471 page document, and you have the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. Another student expressed it perfectly - it's like reading the phone book, and trying to connect the dots. Considering I have already noticed at least three errors, and I don't understand it all, I have to wonder how many errors I can't even recognize.

20 years out of a classroom has highlighted my lack of study skills. I don't know how to take notes anymore, and I don't know how to manage my time. Of course, the beauty here is that it's all on my schedule - I won't take the test until I am ready. That's also my pitfall - I may not push myself to study as often as needed to retain information. But right now, I am mostly loving what I am learning, so I am still highly motivated to keep going.

One thing I did today, and would like to build into my schedule, was drive out to GRR's observation area and just watch the planes come in and take off. I looked on Google maps for the runway numbers, and checked the weather to see if I could anticipate the chosen runway for the day's wind. Wind was  10 SSE, and all traffic used runway 8. I would have expected 17, but I found out they were repainting that runway's markings. It was really fun to watch the planes crab in against the wind.

I met a guy who comes out nearly every day with his radio and listens in on the airport traffic. It was really interesting to hear all the traffic, even though I couldn't make it all out. Monte and I are thinking that it might be worth the money to buy a radio and practice listening in on the airport frequencies, just to get used to hearing it and learning to call correctly. Not all learning is from a book :)