Plane Project

My second cross-country was from Santa Rosa to Modesto, with a quick stop at Stockton, and back to Santa Rosa.  A nice little trip.  I think I made a mistake in not asking for flight following before I took off at Modesto.  My thinking was that the hop to Stockton is only a few minutes and I would request flight following again there for the flight back to Santa Rosa.  The problem is that Stockton was a little hard to see and it would have been helpful to have radar keeping an eye out for other traffic.  Alternatively, I could have asked Modesto tower for frequency change to Stockton and called them earlier.  Another lesson learned.

Some pictures from my first cross country solo from Santa Rosa to Chico and back.  I was a little busy on the way there so these are from the way back.  I foolishly tried to file my flight plan in the air after Duats had apparently failed to file it for me.  Don’t think I’ll do that again unless I’m on a really significant journey.  It must have taken 10 minutes.  Please say again aircraft type. . . . 

After about 22 hours I finally got around to soloing.  I had been as nervous as a cat all morning, but calmed right down as soon as we started taxiing.  Drew and I went around the pattern four times to get me warmed up, then we taxied back to the shade hangers.  He gave me a good briefing and I gave him my camera in case of an NTSB investigation. . . .  (Just kidding!)

The take off was nice and smooth.

The first landing was fine, but it wasn’t perfect.  I have to be careful to not keep pulling back on the yoke after the wheels touch.  At touchdown speed the higher angle of attack can cause the plane to take off again.  I added a little power to ease it back down and it settled as smooth as so much fine silk. 

I went around for another touch-and-go and it was fine.  I just took my time.  Actually, I took enough time the tower asked another plane that was coming in to do a couple of S-turns to give us better separation.  Sorry, but there was no way I was going to do a close base on my first solo flight!

For the third trip around the pattern I requested a full stop landing and taxied over to pick up my instructor.  Boy was I one happy camper!

Me and my faithful steed:

I can do this!  I can fly an airplane! 

Practiced a lot of steep turns yesterday. I was a little nervous when Drew demonstrated a couple, but I was just too busy when doing them to get nervous at all.  You have to use all the controls to keep bank angle down, nose up, and speed up.  They aren’t hard, which is not to say that I’m not going to need a lot of practice.  The main trick is to figure out where the spot on the panel the horizon should be. This was my 5th hour.

No flying today. It just looked too smoky up there from all the wild fires. ATIS said the visibility was 6sm, but I didn’t really buy it. It was mighty hazy on the ground and looked worst up above. Drew said it was clear above about 6000 ft, but I didn’t thing I would be able to see a clear horizon even from up there. It was hard enough just to see the hills across the highway at work! My first NO GO decision!

To make up for it I put in some time on the flight simulator at home. I hooked the flight yoke back up and practiced some slow flight and stalls. Just for the fun of it I landed at SFO. This was probably my best landing to date, so maybe the slow flight practice helped some. More likely, it was my focus on trying to keep the air speed at a constant 60kts with full flaps. It’s much easier to judge and adjust my landing point if I keep my airspeed constant.

Hopefully the air will clear up by Monday for my next lesson.