1st Solo!!!

I'm feeling like the king of the world! I got to fly an airplane all by myself today. No one else was in it! I had to take off, handle the radio, watch out for traffic, manage my speed, altitude and pitch, and land the plane. Three times! If you're getting the idea that I enjoyed myself, you would be correct. I loved it!

I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me start at the beginning. I stayed up kinda late last night, hoping to see the Rays clinch the American League championship. Fortunately, I went to bed before the wheels really fell off. So, I'm sort of tired this morning and not in the best of moods. I get to work and rush through my "to do" list before I head off for Albert Whitted. Driving to the airport, across Tampa Bay, I notice that the weather is perfect. A slight breeze out of the east north east. This might be the day. I start to get excited.

Rob got to the airport before I did, so he has some coffee while I preflight the airplane. We're in N54058 today, my favorite of the older Cessnas at Bay Air. We hop in the plane and wait as a tour group of school kids walks past. It's probably a bad idea to start an airplane engine with kids on the ground nearby. The kids watch me startup and finish my preflight checks. Ground clears us to taxi and tower clears us for takeoff.

Rob has me run a couple laps around the pattern while he is endorsing my log book and student pilot certificate. I'm legal for solo flight now within 25 nm of Albert Whitted, with a 3000 foot ceiling restriction, a 12 knot wind restriction, a 7 knot cross-wind restriction and 5 mile visibility restriction. Cool. No problems with the pattern. I seem to have cured my flare problem with the simplest of fixes. I raised the seat in the airplane. Now I can see over the dash and keep the runway in sight while in the landing flare. I make two beautiful landings.

Rob says we need to practice two things before I can solo. Slips and go-arounds. I've already used a forward slip to land in a crosswind, so the side slip is no big deal. He has me climb too high on the downwind leg of the pattern and perform a side slip on final approach to get rid of the excess altitude. I land and we go around to practice the go-around. This is the simplest of all maneuvers. I'm guessing the problem with a go-around is with making the decision when to go around. One more trip around the pattern and Rob has me make a simulated emergency landing and taxi back to Bay Air. Then it happens, Rob gets out of the airplane and says good luck.

"Whitted Ground, Cessna 54058 at Bay Air, ready to taxi for pattern work."

"54058, Taxi to runway seven, you're second in line after the Cessna doing his run-ups."

I had to wait a few minutes while another student did his engine run-ups. He must have been newer than me, it took him a little while. After he is out of the way, I switch the radio to tower frequency:

"Whitted Tower, Cessna 54058 at runway 7, ready to go."

"Cessna 54058, hold for Cessna on final."

I have to wait again.

"Cessna 54058, cleared for departure, right hand pattern."

"Cleared for departure, right hand pattern, 54058"

I'm ready for business now. I taxi onto the runway, line up down the runway, give the plane full power and something is wrong. I've got about 40 knots of airspeed and the nose is coming off the runway. Think fast. Crap, I trimmed for best glide on that simulated emergency and never set the trim back to neutral. So I hold the nose down until I get 55 knots, rotate and I'm up. Now I trim for my 76 knot climb and all is well, except for the stain in my shorts. I ran through the after landing and takeoff check lists on the ground, but neutral elevator trim is in the preflight checklist. I won't make that mistake again. It was too exciting for my first solo trip. Later, Rob said he should have caught it before he let me go, and told me that it's a good idea to visually check the entire panel before you take off.

"Cessna 54058, cleared for the option."

"Cleared for the option, I'll be making a full stop. 54058"

My first trip around the pattern was the easiest, after the takeoff excitement. The airport was getting busier. Other students were in the pattern and other flights were inbound. When I taxied back to runway 7 for my second trip, three planes were waiting to take off. On my third trip, I had to extend my downwind a bit as I was third in line to land.


That's me with the stupid grin on my face. But, what a day. It just does not get much better. I logged my first PIC (Pilot in Command) time! Good thing that I wore a ratty T-shirt, because the back side of it is now on the bulletin board at Bay Air. I'll have a photo of that next time. Rob says that next we're going to head out to the beach (life is rough when you live in a place where you have to go to the beach to get something done) and practice stalls and such for a few minutes. He then wants me to run the landing approach from the beach to be sure that I can get myself home. After that, he will have me solo again. Then I'm to fly a few hours on my own, within 25 miles of the airport as noted earlier. I'm really looking forward to it.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 9.9 hours

Pilot in Command Time: 0.5 hours

Landings: 43