Lesson 54 - First Solo

 

A student pilot's first solo is arguably the most significant milestone in one's journey to becoming a pilot, or at least one that does not involve passing the FAA's check ride. It is the first time you're truly on your own. There's no safety net of an instructor sitting next to you. Either you know it, or you figure it out really quickly. The student's first solo is in most cases the student flying a few circles in the patten with the instructor who then hops out and sending the student back into the pattern for a few more landings on his/her own. While it's usually a big deal on the emotional front, from a practical standpoint, it's a very simple outing. You basically never leave the airport. With my stage check out of the way two weeks previous, I just needed a day with sunny skies and calm winds to do my first solo. Last week was too windy. I checked the airport forecast for Wednesday. It looked good. Alright, I'm going to knock this one out. 

Except, they closed the parallel runway at Centennial. Don't know why, but that means no pattern work, so no solo at Centennial. I arrived at the airport not knowing if there was a plan B, or if we were just going to have to do something else. My instructor said we'd instead head out to Spaceport instead, because the winds, while higher than at Centennial, were still within minimums. I prepped the plane and we took off to the east. Once in the air, I contacted Spaceport. Their pattern was full. What's more, the winds had kicked up beyond the club limits for student solos, so that wasn't an option. My instructor checked his phone and says the winds are calm down in Colorado Springs. We turned south. At this point, I still don't know if I'm actually going to solo, but I figured we's see where this went. We call Denver Departure for flight following down to the Springs, and set the VOR to navigate to the airport. 

We arrive in Colorado Springs and land on the east runway (17 left). The approach to this runway took me directly over my in-laws' houses, which was cool. This runway is 150' wide and 13,000 long, so it would have been next to impossible to miss it. Still, my instructor was (rightly so) being a stickler for hitting the centerline. Between the glare from the noontime sun and the skid marks from landing jets, the centerline was difficult to make out, but that's a poor excuse. Centerline tracking is important. At this point, I wasn't sure if I was blowing my chance at soloing or not. On my forth touch-and-go, my instructor called the tower to inquire about landing to let him off. They had us fly and land on the west runway (17 right) so I could drop him off. After the gratuitous "first solo" photo of the empty seat next to me and my instructor on the tarmac taking my picture, I throttled up and headed back out to the taxiway. This was it. 

The plan was to do three or four landings, then pick up my instructor and head back north. Colorado Springs' traffic control is a bit different than Centennial in that the ground controller does not hand you off to the tower. You follow the ground controller's instructions up to the hold-short line on the runway, then you switch over to tower frequency and let them know you're ready. Nothing I couldn't handle, but a reminder that I didn't have the "home field advantage." I took off, having to confirm with the tower that they wanted me in a right pattern because I knew I asked, but I wasn't sure I remembered the answer. Nerves. I told them I was a student solo, and they said no worries. 

My first landing was pretty smooth. Not perfect, but on center and on speed. I lifted off again. On my next approach, I was following another student pilot from one of the bigger schools. They were doing a full stop landing, and decided to take their own sweet time getting off the runway. They were still on the runway when I was approaching the threshold, so ATC told me to sidestep to the right and go around. Kinda figured that was going to happen. Had I realized they were full stop when I was on my downwind, I would have extended to give them a bit more time, but oh well. Go-arounds happen, and that's why we practice them. My third landing was my worst of the day. For some reason, I floated down the runway in ground effect for what seemed like forever. I was at 65 knots and not slowing down or going down. I jiggled the throttle thinking maybe it wasn't at full idle. Maybe that was it, but whatever it was, I lost that last bit of airspeed and bounced on the runway before I was ready. On the second bounce, I decided that was enough of that nonsense, stuffed the throttle back to full and started climbing back out. My fourth landing, butter. Absolute butter. I was almost bummed that I was solo on that one because it was definitely worthy of sharing with someone. 

We flew back to Centennial, where ironically my instructor handled the landing because there was a corporate jet landing right behind us so we needed to do a high-speed approach. I know the theory, and goodness knows I've accidentally arrived at the runway threshold at 95 knots at more than a few points in my training, but the resulting landings were abysmal. I was happy to be along for the ride on this one, studying the steps so I can practice them later without a jet riding my rear end. Once on the ground and back in the terminal, I had a very brief moment for the ceremonial shirt tail cutting and photo with my instructor, but we were at this point already an hour late for his next student, who--thankfully--was in the same plane, and very patient.

Take-aways of the day. First, I did it. Not that I was worried, but I did it. That by itself is an achievement. Second, things went wrong (as they will) and I handled them well. ATC said "go around," and I was able to calmly do that. I bounced a landing, recognized the danger, and recovered for the go-around. And I re-grouped after that and absolutely nailed my last landing. Lastly, though completely unplanned and rather impromptu, I think flying down to Colorado Springs added something to the day. It made it a bigger event than just flying three loops in the pattern at the home field. I soloed at an airport I had never been to before. I don't know how big a deal that really is, but to me, it showed that I can enter an unfamiliar airspace and handle it quite well even under a bit of pressure. 

There seems to be two schools of thought on when student pilots solo. Some believe a student should learn how to land right out of the gate, thus get to solo stage between 10 and 20 hours, under the theory that soloing will sharpen those skills as the student pilot sorts things out for themselves. The other (the one embraced by my school) is that students should have a fairly firm grasp of many aspects of flying, including unusual circumstances prior to being given the keys to the sky. I think the former style puts the student in a "sink or swim" environment. Certainly the instructor has faith the student will do well enough or they wouldn't have signed off on it. But does the student? Yet, perhaps a student who completes his or her solo facing a lot of personal apprehension finds an amplified sense of accomplishment having completed the solo despite that apprehension, an "I didn't think I could, but I did!" mindset. There is something particularly rewarding there. 

When looking at my experience through that lens, my solo may be seen as somewhat anticlimactic. There was no "I didn't think I could" aspect of things. I knew I could. And I found the experience every bit as much of an accomplishment. For me, the solo wasn't so much a test as it was a graduation of sorts. A milestone for certain, but mile 20, and a chance to realize the importance of miles 1 through 19. As an added bonus, the flight to and from Colorado Springs provided a cool preview of the next 20 miles. 

Lesson 53 - Pre-solo Stage Check

 

Once my instructor put me in for my stage check, I got paired with another instructor from the school to fly with me and sign off that I was indeed ready to be turned loose on my own. A "second opinion" of sorts which needs to be done by someone who does not fly regularly with the student. This instructor/examiner called me to schedule a time to go. I had a plane booked the following week which matched his availability, so we agreed to meet then. After getting off the phone, I looked at the long range weather forecast. Beautiful weather every day except the day we scheduled. But you can't do anything about the weather, and neither of our schedules allowed sliding things one way or another. We figured we'd take our chances and see what happens. 

That day came, and so did the snow. No flying today. However, we agreed to take care of the written and oral portions of the process since both of us were free. The "written" test is a sheet of 40 questions which ask about airport operations, frequencies used, basic questions about the plane, club rules for flying as a student, etc. I had filled this out early on in my training, so this was more review than anything else. Aside from a few questions whose wording was a bit ambiguous, these were questions that if you couldn't answer after your first 10 lessons, you weren't paying attention. 

The oral portion was more in-depth, a good, though basic warm-up for the oral part of the final check ride. I had previously sat down with my instructor to go through a mock oral where he noted things I needed to brush up on, and I had taken that to heart. I met my examiner, and we essentially had a casual conversation for a few hours about flying, covering all the basic acronyms for required equipment and procedures (ARROW, ATOMATOFLAMES, NWKRAFT) and the like. We talked through some "what if..." scenarios and looked at what would need to have with me when the weather cooperated and we got up in the air. I did well on the oral, though I definitely need to remember those acronyms better. (Even as I type this, I'm trying to remember some of the letters.) 

The practical day would have to wait a bit, as I was going to be on vacation the following week. I had a plane booked two days the week I was to be back from vacation, and it worked out that my examiner would be available the second of those two days. I figured that would give me a "warm-up" day prior to the practical. I liked that idea as it would have been three weeks since my last flight and I was nervous about being a bit rusty, especially when you combine that with general nerves of being tested on things. Well, that "practice" day with my instructor arrived on 30 knot wind gusts, so nope. No flying. I would go into the stage check cold. But--hey--if I "need" a warm-up day to get back in the groove, am I really ready to fly by myself? Probably not. I hit the simulator pretty hard all week to keep fresh on procedures and flows. 

Friday arrived on the heels of an overnight snowfall. I got to the field to find the sun had melted most of the snow off of the plane already, but the side that was in the shade was still icy. (Typical Colorado.) My examiner met me, we spun the plane 180 degrees so the sun could melt the ice off the other side while we talked about preflight stuff and what we wanted to do. (As an aside, one advantage to flying low-wing aircraft--much easier to de-ice the wings.) I could feel the nerves today, not so much about the practical flying, but all the little details I knew I was bound to forget. At this stage check, they're not looking for perfection, just proficiency and safety. It's a progress report. 

We hopped in, started the plane (after my examiner reminded me to push the primer pump handle all the way in. Nerves), and headed out. The winds were calm so we took off on runway 10, which got us headed southeast towards the practice area. I got us down there without any trouble though I gained 200' of altitude when I was supposed to stay at 7500'. Again--nerves. My practice area radio calls were shockingly smooth. I normally get tongue-tied with those though I can talk to ATC all day long. 

We started with slow flight and stalls. I forgot to do my initial clearing turns which I knew I was going to forget. That will be my third sticky-note for my final check ride. "Left," "Right," "Clearing Turns." Those went well, though I didn't realize on power-off stalls there was supposed to be a limit of how much altitude you lose at the start. I always just pulled power, pointed the nose down for about 75 knots, counted to three, then pulled up. I lost about 300' doing that while my examiner was looking for less than 100' loss. Not a dealbreaker, just a lesson to me to make sure I'm aware of what the parameters are of any maneuver I'm being tested on. 

We did some steep turns, which while not required for this stage are always fun. These weren't as smooth as I would have liked, not for lack of mastery of the skill, but because in both cases my nerves got to me and I forgot to note the heading I started at, instead just relying on what I saw out the window, which I noted after I had started the turn. Naturally I overshot on both. That, and apparently my definition of "steep" and my examiner's definition were not the same. I was flying around 45 degrees of bank, he was looking for 60 degrees. Something to work on. We cleaned up from that process and did a simulated emergency landing. Fortunately there was a convenient field off my left wing, and it was easy to set up an approach and landing. Once I got lined up to where landing would be assured, I did a (fairly textbook) go-around, then headed back to the field for some touch-and-go landings.

If I could have started the day with landings, my nerves may have been a bit calmer through this process. Landings were what held up this process to begin with, and while I was more-or-less confident in them, I still had that little bit of uncomfortable doubt. This was (literally) where the rubber meets the runway and if I botched the landings, it was back to the drawing board. I would have much preferred to get the "hard stuff" out of the way first so I knew if I passed that the rest would be easy. Instead, we saved them for last (which made the most sense from a practical standpoint), and I flew with this little nugget of apprehension hanging in the back of my mind much of the time.

Our first approach was a straight-in approach. For whatever reason, I prefer straight-in approaches. Maybe it's because I don't have to worry about turns in the process and have a better gauge to how high or low I am. Despite the straight-in approach, I still ended up just a touch high on short final, but I adjusted and managed to land pretty much where I intended. I uttered a celebratory "YES!" on touching down, but immediately wondered if my examiner interpreted that as "holy crap, I actually did it." I figured I had a few more chances to prove it wasn't an anomaly.

Once I hit that first landing, I knew that monkey was officially off my back and I could relax a bit. We did three more landings in the pattern. I tended to be high on all of them, but that's typical for me. It's rare that I fly a "normal" 3-degree glide slope. Being above the normal glide slope is particularly common when I'm landing on runway 35 where the terrain rises to the south of the field and I'm very hesitant to loose any altitude on the downwind. CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) tends to result in a hard "fail" on stage checks. On the plus side, I dropped us into a slip to get us back on glide slope on one approach, which the examiner noted with "ooh, nice slip." Overall, my landings were pretty solid. My airspeed control was where it needed to be, and a lack of any kind of crosswind (phew!) made landing on the centerline of the runway (within a few feet) pretty easy. 

Our fourth landing would be our final one. The stage check was over (save for tying the plane down). I did it. It wasn't perfect. Flying seldom is, even for seasoned veterans. It was good enough to show that I can fly and land safely by myself. The examiner praised certain aspects and pointed out areas where there is lots of room for improvement. But--most importantly--I passed. I'm officially cleared to fly a plane solo, and move onto the next phase of my training. From here on out, it's not about learning how to fly a plane, it's about learning how to fly a plane well and for a given purpose. I'm not going to say the hard part is done, but my confidence has definitely been given a nice boost. 

Now, I hope for VFR conditions with little wind on a day when I have the plane booked. That's proving to be hard to come by lately. 

Lessons 51 and 52 - Crosswind Control

I was still flying pretty high when I showed up at the field for this lesson. I had flown 6 takeoffs and landings without my primary instructor doing anything the previous day, and he put me in for my pre-solo stage check. I was pretty stoked. Today's lesson was with my secondary instructor. He tends to be a bit more picky than my primary instructor, and I was admittedly a bit worried that I'd totally botch things up. I told him my primary instructor had put me in for stage check, so he suggested we go out and brush up on maneuvers then do some touch-and-goes in preparation for that. Sounded reasonable to me. 

My maneuvers were fine, though I was definitely rusty on steep turns. I hadn't done maneuvers by themselves as an exercise in a while, but in reality I had been doing them every time I flew in the pattern. We just didn't specifically call them "ground reference maneuvers," and the biggest mental roadblock seemed to be getting into them from straight-and-level. We also did some power-on stalls, which I had not done in forever (and--thankfully--have not done during pattern work). The Grumman can get quite nose-high before it stalls, which for a mere 150hp engine surprised me. 

After a short bit of that, we headed back to Centennial for touch-and-goes. My landings today were not as smooth as the previous day. That last few feet kept throwing me sideways and I'd be trying to correct and lose sight of my airspeed. They weren't "bad" landings, but after the previous day, I was hoping they'd be smoother. Midway through, ATC changed the direction of flow on the runways. Ordinarily, they'll just have us extend and loop around. This time, they kicked everyone out of the airspace for 10 minutes while they made this change. We flew west and did some more ground reference maneuvers while waiting for them to change runways. We came back, flew a few more touch-and-goes, and--still--things weren't where I wanted them to be. Off just that little bit to be annoying.

It wasn't until after we tied down that it dawned on me as to why. Crosswinds. They didn't enter my mind. I wasn't compensating for them. They were definitely there as evidenced by ATC changing runway directions midway through our lesson because they were shifting. But for whatever reason, my mind just totally ignored the crosswind component of landings because the wind speed wasn't all that high. Dumb. Totally dumb. Totally correctable, but that would have to wait until the next lesson. The day previous, the wind was pretty much straight down the runway so I didn't have to think about it. Of course, that's not the right attitude either. I should always be thinking about it, just that my compensation for it needs to adjust based on how much of a crosswind there is. Again--lesson learned. Always figure a crosswind component. 

Crosswind Landings, take 2:

A week later, my secondary instructor and I were back at it again. After my previous lesson, my instructor and I decided that I should work on better crosswind control, and today's winds favored this well. We decided to fly down to Meadow Lake, which is a small field just north of Colorado Springs. This would be a narrower runway, only 60' wide, so I'd have a smaller target to hit. The winds were gusty and out of the northeast, so I'd have a fairly significant crosswind component to contend with, about 6 to 8 knots we figured. I was a little unsure about the narrower runway, but my instructor had faith in me. Given that after our first few lessons together I was worried he thought I was hopeless, his faith that I could hit a 60' wide runway with a fairly hefty crosswind definitely boosted my confidence. 

It's about a 25 minute flight from Centennial to Meadow Lake, so I decided not to waste that time just looking at the scenery. Rather, I suggested we do just the opposite--put me "under the hood" and have me fly down there based solely on the instruments. You need 3 hours simulated instrument flying to qualify for your private license, so I figured this was a good chance to get my feet wet. We took off, got to cruise altitude, and I put on the "hood" which is essentially an oversized golf visor which shields your eyes from what's outside the window. "This'll be duck soup!" I thought. Just dial in the VOR frequency and track it. How hard could that possibly be? 

Yeah, I ain't ever made duck soup, so I don't really know if it's easy or not. This was a whole lot harder than it looks on paper. My ability to hold altitude and heading based solely on instruments made my first time taxiing a plane using rudder pedals look straight-up sober. Here's the thing. Airplane instruments are slow to respond to what's going on. They tell you what the plane was doing a few seconds ago. Some, like the vertical speed indicator are particularly laggy. When you're flying solely by the instruments, you have to make very small, very slow changes so the gauges can keep up with what you're doing. I didn't do that. I was flying "normally." When I'd turn to a given heading, I'd stop when the heading indicator showed I was there, but really I was about 5 - 10 degrees past it because it was lagging behind just that much. So I'd turn back the other way and get 5 - 10 degrees off the opposite direction. Same for altitude. Somehow, in spite of myself, I managed to get us to where we wanted to be to set up a visual approach to Meadow Lake. I was reassured after our flight that this was perfectly normal for a student's first time flying by instruments. I'm looking forward (pardon the pun) to my next time under the hood. 

Anyway, we turned west towards Meadow Lake. This is an untowered airport, so there's no air traffic controller telling us where to fly. You basically announce your position and intentions at various stages in the process and hope other planes in the area are listening and staying the heck out of your way. It's similar to what we do in our practice areas, except in this case we're taking off and landing, not just flying in literal circles in the sky. 

The purpose of this exercise was to get me used to compensating for crosswinds in landings. I've written in the past, ailerons into the wind, a bit of opposite rudder to keep the nose aligned with the runway. I've done it to varying degrees and with varying degrees of success in the past, but this was the first time I was dedicating a lesson specifically to somewhat crosswind correction. I have set up crosswind scenarios on my simulator to help with this, so even in practice this isn't a foreign concept. It's just that I have to work on the mental memory to remember to take it into account. To be truthful, I surprised myself at how well I did. I asked my instructor how much he was assisting, he said "not much." Given my experience with him on previous lessons where I felt like I was fighting him on the controls, I rarely (ever?) felt any control input on his part when getting things lined up for the runway. I felt pretty good about that.

In retrospect, however, I realize there was still plenty of room for improvement. When looking back on the tracks of my patterns, one thing is obvious. I did a pretty decent job of compensating for the crosswind on the final approach to the runway. That final approach is one of four legs of a good traffic pattern. My crosswind compensation on the other three left a whole lot to be desired. On the downwind leg, I'd be letting myself get blown sideways closer to the runway. This would shorten my base leg and I'd either overshoot or be too high making that turn to final because I hadn't given myself enough time to descend on the base leg. Same thing on the upwind leg. Once off the ground after landing, I'd be blown sideways and struggle to stay lined up with runway centerline. 

The solution to all of this is to pick a point on the ground that you can use to reference your traffic pattern points and fly to them, compensating for the wind while in the air. This was my first time flying to this airport, so I'm not going to beat myself up too much for not being familiar with it, but it's definitely something you want to make mental checks to do. 

We did a half dozen or so touch-and-goes, then decided to call it a day and head back home. We did a simulated emergency engine out on the way, then decided that was enough teaching for one day. The air was smooth and the sun was shining. It was a good chance to just fly for the sake of flying--a reminder of why it is I'm doing this. It's good to have those moments in the air where you can just sit back, relax, take it all in, and realize how unique this experience is.