First Solo Flight

First Solo Flight
Friday June 11, 2010

I met with Hal for my flight lesson this morning. Nothing out of the ordinary, winds were at about 4 knots and it was a beautiful day. He discussed the proper way to perform a go-around and mentioned that we needed to work on some s-turns. I did the pre-flight and we proceeded to runway 5 and took off.

Shortly after I turned downwind for my first landing Hal says what do you do if you loose power now and he pulls out the throttle. Crap! I haven’t practiced an emergency procedure for weeks. A gentle reminder from the right seat, establish proper glide speed, look for a place to land… it’s all coming back to me now. We increased the throttle and got back on our downwind, turned base, and then final for runway 5.

As I am getting close to touching down Hal says there’s a deer on the runway, you need to go around. We increase power and once the Cherokee is climbing I incrementally let out each notch of flap and climb out over the invisible deer. I do two more landings and Hal says, “I think you're ready to solo.” So I’m thinking I’ll probably be soloing next week. Next I hear from the right seat, “Taxi of to the hanger I need get my hand held radio so I can talk to you.” Uh, he means I am going to solo now!

We get over to the hanger and he fills out the endorsements in my log book, after several reminders to watch my airspeed and altitude and to just be careful, Hal gets out of the plane, gets his radio and signals me to go.

By this time I am pretty nauseated. I’m not exactly scared, just sort of sick to my stomach. I taxi back out to the runway and keep telling myself, “I can do this, I can do this.” I do a run-up and make my radio call that Cherokee 8354W is departing runway 5 and then taxi onto the runway. I sit there for a few seconds to breathe and double check everything and then I go.

O.K., I’m up, I’m all alone, and so far everything is cool. At this point the sick feeling in my stomach is gone and I have a fleeting moment of joy, which is quickly replaced by the thought that I actually have to land this thing by myself now. I keep waiting to hear Hals voice over the radio, but there’s nothing and all I can think of is Tom Cruise in Top Gun saying “Talk to me goose, talk to me.” Seriously, that really was what I was thinking!

At this point I am on the downwind leg and I know I have to start thinking about the steps I need to take in order to land. At midfield I make sure the fuel pump is on and I turn on the carb heat. Now I’m at the numbers so I put in a notch of flaps and trim to the proper speed. Time to turn base, speed looks good, altitude is good. Another notch of flaps and I begin my turn to final. I add the last notch of flaps, check my speed, and then finally, I hear from Hal. He reminds me to check my speed, I tell him it's good and I continue the descent.

The rest is sort of a blur. I did three full stop landings. I remember there was some porpoising on at least one of them and the voice over the radio told me to hold it off and I got her down. The last one was a pretty good landing I think. It really does sort of blur altogether and it was over before I knew it. I taxied back to the hanger and Hal opened the door with a huge smile, shook my hand, and told me congratulations.

My Uncle is a pilot also and is currently riding his bike across the country. On his blog, The Longest Ride, he said his knees were shaking after his first solo and wondered if mine were too. No, Sam, my knees weren’t shaking. When I got out of the plane both my legs from top to bottom were shaking.

I feel like a real pilot now and was invincible for the rest of the weekend, because I soloed; I can fly.