"I do not like the cone of shame"

Cone of Shame

I got put back under the cone of shame today, or as normal pilots call it, the hood.  It is basically a cone that sits over my face so I can only see the instruments, but no horizon or outside feathers.  It mimics flying basic maneuvers only by instrument, basically to simulate flying in dark.  Flying in poor visibility/weather conditions is flying purely by instrument, but that's a whole other rating.
The biggest problem I have with it is that my body is telling me one thing, the instruments are saying another, and then the little tiny bits of land I can see outside the cone in my peripheral vision, are saying a whole other thing.  It leads to frustration on my part simply because when I'm flying normally, I can visually see what the horizon/airplane is doing to correct something such as keeping the wings straight, while using the instruments to make sure I'm flying level.  Under the hood/cone of shame, you have to focus on all instruments at once.
The thing I most, most hate, hate about it is the fact that the last time I was under it, it was rough flying.  Today's weather, however, put that day to shame.  Thermals everywhere, cold air to my climbs/descends were quicker, not to mention extremely strong winds (about a 30knot wind at the max).  It was soo difficult to keep everything in line.  The bumpiness has also led to one of the very few times I've ever felt motion sickness (mind you I could ride a roller-coaster all day or sit in the car for a 12 hour trip to Florida and never think twice about it.).  Tom was kind to the both of us and made sure to keep it at about an hour of flight so I wouldn't lose my cookies.  I doubt I would've gotten sick, but being jousteled around with no visual references, and throw in some steep turns, wouldn't sit well with even the strongest of stomachs.
Tom pushed me even further by having me enter the traffic pattern under the hood, and at that altitude, the winds were ridiculous.   Then I got to land in them about 2 minutes after taking off the hood, so my visual awareness was slightly down.  Before we took off, I watched a regional jet (RJ) have troubles setting up and landing.  Then, Tom came out and we both watched a Dash-8 have a real hard time landing.  Tom simply turned to me and said "well, we're going to have fun today!  Our landings are going to be 10 times that messy!".  Gee, thanks Tom.  I ended up botching the landing and Tom took the controls over about 10 feet off the ground.  I had landed in strong crosswinds before, but never strong gusty wind, so it was a learning experience.

Good news too!  The end is in sight, fiinnaalllyyy.  I realized today that I'm going to dearly miss flying every week, and don't know what I'm going to do with myself.  I really only have two flights left..TWO!  I have a solo I need to get in a whopping .1 hour of solo-CC time (yes, I'm taking an hour trip to get 6 minutes in...GRR).  Then, I have a flight scheduled for Tuesday to fly up to Leesburg (if anyone in that area would like to come out and see me/plane, let me know) because I need more hood time, and I want to make sure I get a flight up there with an instructor, so that if I start to mess something up with the whole airspace rule, I don't get shot down.  THEN!  Written test, review any missed sections, then I do my checkride.  My checkride consists of an oral portion of the test where I'm asked questions and have to answer, then there's an actual flight test, where I demonstrate all of the necessary maneuvers.  Judging by my schedule and the weather, I may be *choke* a license pilot next week.  I'm basically going to have two Christmas' this year =D

Quote of the day: Shane, another instructor, was being given an aeronautical engineering lesson from some old guy.  His response: "Man, I just want to fly the darn plane, what the f*** is all of this for?!?!"