This one was mostly to polish up maneuvers, emergency procedures, and landings. Adam was all business, and I tried to be.
One very shocking thing happened--or didn't happen, depending on how you look at it. While we were on downwind for 33 one time, chugging along at 1200 feet, I looked down to see a small, white, highwing airplane, probably another Cessna 152, approaching the highway, apparently on final. But it was rather far to the right, angling about 30 degrees to its left toward the runway, and it appeared to be quite low. As I watched, all of a sudden I got the idea that it was going to reach the ground just as it passed over the road. It kept getting closer and lower, until finally I just KNEW it was going to crash. At that instant I heard Adam catch his breath hard enough to activate the intercom and I knew he had seen it, too. And then the plane passed the road and landed on the runway.
"Wow," Adam said, "I guess I just saw an illusion."
We talked it over, but couldn't figure out what had caused us both to
be so sure that plane was going down--but we were sure! It
was one of those rare moments when your heart just goes THUMP and
then seems to stop and wait for it to happen.