First Solo!

I've been taking pilot lessons for a few months now.  Being able to fly "only" once a week, it's not going super fast, but it's going.

My first CFI, Luke and I went up on Saturday and shot some crosswind touch-and-go's (11g16 kts pretty much straight across the runway). I felt that most of my landings were fair, and he didn't really have to help me on the controls. Once we landed, he told me that I should schedule another flight for the next day so that we could get me solo'd. Man, my nerves were playing havoc all night.  As I tell people, I'm very comfortable with the flying, but the landings are very stressful.  I don't feel that I'm very good at them.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy them.  They're challenging.  I just don't think I'm that good at them.

Anyway, the weather turned out perfectly the morning of the solo. It was around 75f with maybe a 5-7 kt wind coming straight down the runway. Luke was in the plane for the first three landings. He pulled the power on me on the third one. "Engine out.  Sorry I have to do this to you." That was my best landing of the three, go figure.  Establish best glide speed, easy turn toward the runway, flaps in as the landing becomes assured, easy touchdown.  It was near the beginning of the downwind, so I may have turned too soon -- ended up landing about half way down the 5,500 foot runway. 

Once we cleared the runway after that one, he had me taxi over to the terminal and he hopped out.Laura  had come along with me, so Luke grabbed the hand-held radio and he and Laura walked down to the taxi-way to bid me farewell, I guess. (It's an uncontrolled airport -- KFCI). With it being such a gorgeous day today, there were more planes in the pattern than I was used to, and several shooting the ILS approach as well.

I taxi'd down to the active (33) and took a few seconds to convince myself to take-off. "Once the plane's off the ground, you'll have to land it." The first take-off (as many people have reported) was unexpected -- the plane jumped off the runway nearly as soon as I began rotating and didn't hesitate a bit to climb. I found myself nearly 150 feet above pattern altitude before I realized that the plane just really wanted to climb, and cut power a little more than usual to reign it back in.

The first two landings were great -- probably two of the best I've ever done. On the third, there was an aircraft shooting a low ILS approach 5 miles out as I was taking off. By the time I was on the downwind (parallel the runway, heading in the opposite direction I was going to land), I couldn't see him, but announced that I'd extend downwind until he was out of the way. Once I finally saw him, he was pretty well past me on the approach, so I started my base turn at a bit too high, and a bit too fast -- the rest of the approach seemed to stay that way. I guess I didn't cut power enough to get myself down. I ended up doing a go-around on that one. I probably could have slipped down to a good approach, but having not had a lot of practice with that, decided to just try again.  I felt it was an excellent decision-making process, and certainly a decision made on the side of caution. The last approach was much better, and a perfect end to a perfect solo -- the touchdown was right on the centerline, nice and smooth, stall horn going off. What a great end to the day.

It's nice to see that .7 hours PIC in the logbook next to the 13.5 of dual. Man, I wish I could go flying again right now.

I certainly didn't think I was ready last night when he told me we were going to try for today, but I talked myself down a bit. The three good landings in calm-ish winds this morning were really a confidence booster. He kept re-assuring me, "I wouldn't send you up if I didn't think you were ready." Man, I'm glad he did. What a great feeling.