First Solo

I finally did it!!!! After all of the work, I finally soloed. It was a normal hot hazy summer day here in North Texas when we started this morning. The odd thing is on the way in to the airport, I saw a lot of fog in a little valley just to the west of the airport. When I got to the airplane, there was fog on the outside of the window. I knew something was up when Richard handed me a key to the lock box this morning (students don't get a key to the lock box until they have soloed).

We did our usual pattern work and he threw several things at me that I handled fairly well. Our problem was that the pattern was pretty full today with a lot of people in from Addison. They aren't too familiar with the noise problems we have from the city of Fairview and I don't think that they care about being good neighbors. I also noticed very different flying styles when turning to base and final than what we use. They have a tendency to carry their base leg a lot farther out than we do. The majority of the people from McKinney tend to keep their base and final legs inside of highway 380 where the rest seem to carry their's way out past highway 380. The one thing that Richard is teaching me is to be flexible. I can fly that long approach or I can fly the rather short one that the tower guys seem to like a lot better.

I even got a wave off today. I was following another Skyhawk who had an option (the option is to do a touch and go or do a full stop landing) and then stopped on the runway. By the time they would have turned onto a taxi way, I would have been right on top of them. So I got a wave off, got right back in the pattern and finally landed. We made that one a full stop where Richard got out of the plane and said good luck.

The tower guys were great and really watched out for me. The McKinney tower guys are really good to us and are generally friendly and easy to talk to. So I got back out on the taxi way and headed for RWY 17 for my takeoff. I was behind another one of the Addison guys so I waited my turn. When I got my clearance and rolled down the runway, I knew that I had to do this one all by myself. As soon as I lifted off, I knew I had to do this one on my own. I got up in the pattern and was number 2 behind the Addison guy. Because of their odd pattern work, I had to extend my downwind leg across 380 before I could turn to base. I had everything lined up great but I carried too much speed in so when I flared, I flared for a long time and put down a lot farther than I wanted for a touch and go. Since I had the option, I chose to do a full stop landing and to turn onto taxi way Delta. I was going a little too fast for the turn so I ended up locking up the brakes and actually got a wheel off into the grass but was able to get it back up onto the taxi way. All of this occurred right in front of the tower for them to see. The controller told me to get my flaps up and taxi back to RWY 17 and he would get me back in the air again quickly.

So I put my tail between my legs and headed back to RWY 17 and got back into the pattern again. This time I watched my speed, position and attitude a lot better. When I finally flared, it was in the middle and much closer to the numbers than the first one. I got it down, let it settle, pushed carb heat in, raised the flaps and pushed the throttle in and went back at it for number 3. all I can say is that number 3 was definitely the best. On centerline, speed was good, flare was good, but I was still a little long. So I made it back to taxi way Delta and the controller cleared me back to the ramp and said "Good job". I kindly thanked him and went back to get my critiques from Richard.

I'm too excited to remember everything but I am very grateful to Richard for putting up with my erratic schedule, my wife for just putting up with me and to Bryan for getting me involved. Now it's on to bigger and better things.

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