October 9, 2011 - First Solo Local East
Finally,
I flew all by myself outside the circuit this morning, to the practise
area. And I didn’t fall out of the
sky! Although I have flown solo before,
it’s been a while, and It was all in the circuit. This morning, my task was to fly east to the
Claremont area by myself and practise one steep turn and one power off stall,
then come home to city and land safely.
I was pretty nervous at first, as evidenced by my accidental engine abuse: During pre-taxi, I somehow let the engine run at 1500RPM – oops! But the winds were calm this morning, and the sky pretty clear despite some early morning fog, and once I was airborne off 26, I couldn’t help but smile to myself—I was flying! Me! All by myself!!
It was a busy morning for small planes – several cessnas out and about, and many in the practice area seemed to be solo students; the radio calls were a bit hacky. :-) But I managed to get out there at the correct altitude, and even actually did sort of a steep turn and even a stall before heading back south west to my home airport.
It was not my most brilliant flight ever, but it was safe, and I did it on my own, successfully – wow! I might actually become a real pilot!
I was pretty nervous at first, as evidenced by my accidental engine abuse: During pre-taxi, I somehow let the engine run at 1500RPM – oops! But the winds were calm this morning, and the sky pretty clear despite some early morning fog, and once I was airborne off 26, I couldn’t help but smile to myself—I was flying! Me! All by myself!!
It was a busy morning for small planes – several cessnas out and about, and many in the practice area seemed to be solo students; the radio calls were a bit hacky. :-) But I managed to get out there at the correct altitude, and even actually did sort of a steep turn and even a stall before heading back south west to my home airport.
It was not my most brilliant flight ever, but it was safe, and I did it on my own, successfully – wow! I might actually become a real pilot!