Solo Flight!

Who? Me .... Marcus
What? My first solo in N1423T
Where? PWK Palwaukee Municipal Airport
When? Thursday June 1st 2006 1:00 UTC


I did it, the first big accomplishment of my avation adventure. My first solo. I hadn't flown in roughly two weeks due to travel and was pretty nervous about beeing rusty. My instructor had been telling me that I was ready to solo, provided I didn't screw up anything too bad he would endorse me to solo my next time out. Well that next time out was this past thursday.

The weather couldn't have been better for a rookie pilot. When I got the airport aroud 6:30 pm ATIS was reporting calm winds, the sky only had a few clouds just a fantastic evening. I can't tell you how much more confidence the condiditions gave me. My instructor got there at five minutes or so before we had the plane reserved and we proceeded to prflight the airplan. The preflight finished up with out a hitch and we proceeded to get taxi clearance to hold short of runway 16. We proceeded to fly three touch and gos. My first touch and go was ok a bit hard but safe. My second landing I was concentrating very hard on greasing it but came in a little too hot and balloned just a touch. This kinda had me discouraged and thinking now I would get to solo but got ready for my last dual touch and go. My last landing was probably my best one yet. At this point we taxied to parking and my instructor did all the paper work signing me off to solo at Palwaukee Airport (PWK). My instructor got out shook my hand and told me to go out there and give him three good full stop landings.

I was really going to fly all by myself! No more training wheels. I was the only one that could get me up into the sky and down safely. I was really nervous for like ten seconds and asked my self why I was doing this. In fact I am pretty sure my voice cracked while getting taxi clearance from Palwaukee ground. It is not cool when you are thirty and your voice cracks. But the nerves quickly faded away as I got taxi clearance to runway 16, in fact I was so excited my cheeks hurt from smiling. Following my take off clearance I proceded to start my takeoff roll. The first thing I noticed was how much faster the plane accelerated and also how much more left turning tendancy there was with out my instructor. Airspeed indicator alive check, engine rpms check, rotate..... and I am flying. As I climb out I noticed that I am almost at pattern altitude even before midfield, talk about better performance with out the instructor. My turn cross wind is uneventfull. Same goes for my turn downwind. As I approach beeing abeam the numbers reduce the power to 1600 or so and one notch of flaps and trim to 80mph. So far so good. I turn base second notch of flaps trim to 75 so far so good. At this point I realize that my cross wind wasn't wide enough leaving me effectively a u-turn from downwind to final, need to work on that next time around. Third notch of flaps trim to 70, check I am lined up with the center line and am right on the VASI, so far so good. As a come over the threshhold cut the power and give a little tug on the yoke so as not to come in flat as a pancake. I am now floating down the runway, increase the back preasure on the elevator now about 2 feet off the ground, a little more back preassure, I hear the stall horn and then feel the wheels touch down ever so softly. I did it! I did it and I didn't break the plane.

Now that I am done congratgulating myself I realize that I have drifted right of the center line. Not real bad but a good to feet to the right of the centerline. So much for the perfect first landing. Now it is time to slow down so I apply the toe brakes. I apperantly but too much preasure on the right brake as I started to swearve around. I taxi off the active and get cleared to taxi back to runway 16 and proceeded to get cleared for take off. Before advancing the throttle for take off I run though a quick check list and in doing so realize that I still have three notches of flaps. Thank good I caught that error. Just goes to show you how important checklists are. I proceeded to land two more times with out incident, and I must say the landing were pretty good.

So now I have .5 hours as pilot in command and can't wait for the next time I can fly. I only wish my wife could have been there to see. It took me 22 hours to solo so I wasn't the fastest to solo but I am very happy with my progress.