**I recently logged into my feedburner account and was shocked to see that I had quite a few subscribers. While most of the subscribers are for the podcast, I think there is a fair number reading the blog as well. Since it has been awhile since I've posted, I wanted to get something out to let people know I'm still flying...Sorry, no in-flight audio, but I'll try to get more of that in the future. Also, A big thank you to all that are reading/listening. The feedback I've received has been great and I hope to hear from the rest of you as well.** Lately, it has been rare that I've been able to schedule two lessons on one weekend. This weekend was looking to be no different. I had a lesson scheduled for Saturday, but the weather forecast looked prohibitive of a Sunday lesson. However, I've come to the point where I enjoy flying so much that I realize one day in the air is much, much better than none! Saturday morning came about much too quickly. I rushed out the door shortly after waking up and headed towards San Antonio International. Rodrigo and I arrived at about the same time, so we checked the weather report, grabbed the keys and POH for our airplane, and headed towards his cubicle for a short bit of ground instruction. Rodrigo quickly ran through the procedures for short and soft field takeoffs and landings. In addition to the explanations, he artistically illustrated them on a white board. When he asked if I had any questions, all I could ask was, "You're going to do each one first and let me follow on the controls right?" We headed out to our airplane. Today, we would be in N52261. This airplane is a Cessna 172P lovingly nicknamed, "The Beast!" When I asked Rodrigo how it got it's nickname, he told me, "You'll know as soon as you start to taxi!" I had flown this airplane once or twice before, but this was the first time I had heard the nickname. Thinking back to my previous flights in this craft, I couldn't remember any reason to call it "The beast." As I started to taxi, I was still clueless of the origins of the nickname. However, when I pulled into the run-up area and did my final flight controls check, I suddenly found "The beast" to be a well deserved nickname. The controls were stiff. The elevator, in particular, required much more effort than any of the other 172s I've flown. I looked over at Rodrigo with a confused look and, while moving the elevator, asked, "Is this OK?" Rodrigo moved the elevator up and down and deflected the ailerons in both directions. He said that they are tough to move, but they are in good flight condition. Accepting this explanation, I was ready to take off. Rodrigo decided that we would make our first departure a soft-field takeoff. He would handle the controls and I would follow him. With the flaps set to 10 and the elevator fully deflected in the nose up position, we rolled onto the runway and Rodrigo hit the throttle. The nose wheel jumped off the ground and was held in the air by Rodrigo. The airplane left the ground around 50 knots, but Rodrigo prevented it from climbing out of ground effect. We flew low over the runway until our speed reached 70 knots. At 70, Rodrigo put the airplane into a normal takeoff climb and handed the controls off to me. San Antonio ATC kept me under their control for the duration of the short flight to Stinson Field (KSSF). A short ten minutes after takeoff, I was handed off to the Stinson tower and preparing to enter their pattern. Once I was given my landing clearance, Rodrigo again took the controls to demonstrate a soft-field landing. Nothing difficult here...just keep the nose wheel up and try not to use the breaks when on the ground. However, Rodrigo slammed the airplane down hard and couldn't keep the nose wheel off the ground. We both started to laugh when Rodrigo commented that mine would probably be much better than his demonstration. We taxied back to the runway so that Rodrigo could demonstrate a short-field departure. Again, this seemed fairly