Back in the saddle

Well, the holiday break is over, Matt is back in training, and the girls are back in school.  The girls eased right back into their routine—with 1 birthday party each to look forward to this weekend--and are excited about swim lessons at the Y resuming next week.  Matt has his first flight since the >2wk long hiatus on Tuesday…and I wish I could say overcoming motionsickness has been like riding a bike (in that once you have it down, you have it down), but that has not proven to be the case.  Despite spinning religiously over break—and even turning down the opportunity to roadtrip again to New Orleans to keep up our Barany chair routine, and despite a rigorous professional spin on Monday, Matt still threw up a whopping 4 times yesterday afternoon.  To cap it off, he is battling a cold, which is affecting his sleep.  He went to see the flight doc about that and his motion sickness (every time you throw up or report motion sickness during flight, you have to be cleared by the flight doc in order to proceed with training).  He was prescribed some Mucinex and grounded from flying until Monday (there are very few meds you can fly while taking d/t side effects).  Because he needs to fly every day to keep motion sickness at bay, it will in all likelihood be a lot of spinning this weekend, but then square one again on Monday. 

In my opinion, they way the training routine operates certainly does not help matters anyway.  Matt is slightly behind in academics (but still over a month ahead of syllabus) due to the bout of rough flights he experienced prior to the break.  You are not cleared for the next block of academics until you pass your check ride for the previous block, so he has some catching up to do.  Academic classes are held in the morning, which means for the foreseeable future, all his flights are in the afternoon, which is a far worse time to be flying, simply because he has eaten more.  When he can hop right out of bed, grab oatmeal w/flaxseed and a banana, and head off to his plane, results are muuuuch better.  It makes the cycle more difficult to beat.  And another thing that makes me extremely anxious about the program is how easy (in my opinion) it is to regain solo-flight status after a long bout of rough flights.  Of his past 10 flights, Matt has encountered problems with motion sickness or disorientation on 7 of them, resulting in “hooks”.  No matter how many he hooks, as soon as he passes 2 in a row, he will be qualified for his aerial solo.  He has assured me that when this time comes, he will play it extremely safe and do the minimal required in terms of maneuvers, so as not to pull too many Gs, etc. (increase susceptibility to motion sickness), but it still makes me nervous.  This is not the first time I have felt like the program may move too quickly for the new guys (those entering training with zero hours), but I am one of those wives/moms who always worries about everything and Vance does have excellent safety and success stats to back up its judgment.

Well, here’s hoping for the best and for Matt to have some pleasant flights next week.  :OD