Pilot Life: Cross Country to Richfield (Again!)

Today, I logged a long flight by doing a cross-country with my instructor down to Richfield and back. Before heading to the airport, I spent this morning writing up the flight plan. As soon as I arrived at the airport, I met with my flight instructor and then got dispatched out and conducted the pre-flight checks. After the pre-flight was done, I had the plane fueled and cleaned while my instructor and I went back inside to file the flight plan with the flight service station. While my instructor did his own weather briefing, I called the flight service station via telephone and filed the flight plan I wrote up (my first time doing so!). After providing the briefer the pertinent information for the flight, I requested the standard weather briefing for the flight path we would be flying. After receiving the latest and most relevant information with regards to weather and winds aloft, I went back out to the airplane and waited for my flight instructor to join me.

N958CT, "Wolf 14," the Katana my instructor and I flew today's cross-country flight on.

We hopped in, got the engine started, received taxi clearance, did our run-ups, got cleared for takeoff and we got airborne. We opened up the flight plan with Flight Service in Cedar City and we were on our way. The route we took was the same as the last cross-country training flight to Richfield I did with my previous instructor. On the way down and back up throughout the flight, my instructor quizzed me and had me think of certain scenarios on a flight like this, which I honestly wasn't prepared for because I was trying to demonstrate that I am capable of operating on my own once endorsed. And frankly, this has become somewhat of a norm with my new instructor and I feel that we don't really see eye-to-eye considering all the frustration and waiting I've had to put up with so far this year...

Upon arrival into Richfield, it was a standard left traffic pattern entry for Runway 19 with a touch-and-go and we were on our back to Provo, where we would eventually land and call it a flight. I must admit, I'm not feeling much confidence right now and I don't my new instructor is helping much. I certainly hope this isn't a sign of worse things to come.