Flight 11: Solo Day

Flight 11
2009-08-04 09:00 MDT
Temp: 20C, Wind: Calm to start

Today was a momentous day in my life. Today was solo day. Today consisted of nothing but 8 takeoffs and landings. The difference is that for 3 of them, Jory wasn't in the plane. We began like any other day, only Jory was noticeably not talking as much, undoubtedly to get me used to the loneliness that would follow. He was also doing something in my logbook.

We flew 5 times around the pattern, with each landing getting slightly better. I really need to stop flaring so early. As I've said before, you flare at the very end to make sure the main (rear) gear touch down first. However, if you do it too soon, then you end up slowing down way too much, way too high off the ground, then the plane falls quite roughly into the runway, thus defeating the purpose of your soft landing. It is known as the bottom dropping out.

So that happened a couple of times, but it got to the point where Jory was satisfied that I wouldn't die, so we taxied back to the ramp, and he jumped out of the plane.

Loneliness does not begin to describe the next 3 minutes of my life. As I taxied the plane back to the taxiway and eventually down to the north end of the airport, I think I felt more alone than I ever have in my life. No one sitting there. No one talking to me. Nothing but me, a 160 hp engine, and the occasional call from another pilot in the area.

I got to the end of runway 15, and sat on the line for a minute so that another plane could land. I gave him what turned out to be more than ample time to get off the runway, then, with my heart racing considerably, rolled onto the runway and pushed in the throttle. The takeoff went as smoothly as I could have hoped, and I suddenly felt a lot more confident about all of this.

An airplane climbs much faster when someone gets out of it. It also appears to fly a bit faster, but maybe that was the tailwind. When I was on the downwind leg (incidentally, please feel free to ask for clarification if any of this terminology ever confuses anyone), I reached a point even with the end of the runway, which is where it's time to begin your approach. As I pulled the throttle out to start descending, I thought for the first time that I cannot screw this up. That if I don't land this plane successfully, I may become seriously injured and/or die. I turned base, then turned final, and it was all feeling very real at the time. I came in, and stuck the landing like it was nobody's business. I believe it to be the best landing I have done to date.

It then occurred to me that I was less nervous by myself than I usually am with Jory. Apparently not disappointing my instructor is more important to me than my own life. The next landing wasn't quite as nice. I came down smoothly, but with the nose pointed ever so slightly to the left. The third one was pretty textbook as well. I came in high because I had flown out wide to allow some spacing between myself and another plane in front of me. I did a forward slip (fun) to lose some altitude, then brought it down nice and smoothly.

One of the other instructors named JJ congratulated me on the radio, as he was waiting to takeoff. I brought the plane back to the ramp, shut it down, and posed with Jory for a celebratory photo (which I still want, Jory).

All told, today was pretty freaking awesome.