First True Solo

I've soloed several times recently but only after a few laps around the patch. Today was a first. It was all me. I had been watching the wind all day because it was supposed to be "breezy". Luckily for me, when it came time to go flying, the wind was just about straight down the centerline, but at 15 knots. I did my preflight and even had the guys from the FBO come over and top me off for my big 0.6 hour of fun. Getting down the runway for takeoff was easy but as soon as I was airborne, I realized that I had to land. Pilots have an old saying that goes "Takeoffs are optional. Landings are mandatory." I will say that I am a lot more comfortable flying now but I always have some reservations about my skills. Today was a good example of my growing confidence.

My first landing was OK, slightly off the centerline, as usual, but smooth. My second one was a lot messier. I realized too late that I was carrying too much speed for my approach and when I flared, I was too high so I had a little one hopper to the shortstop. I was having an old recurring problem with the airplane. This particular airplane has a tendency to sometimes have a bad nose wheel shimmy when the nose wheel touches down. The only fix I know of that keeps the plane from shaking apart is to pull back on the elevator and take weight off of the nose wheel and it goes away. This did it to me twice today. By the time my nose wheel touches down, I am usually under 45 knots so I can't take a whole lot of weight off of the nose wheel but I do what I can.

After several touch and goes, I decided to call it a day and enjoy the nice sunshine of the afternoon, all 30 minutes that was left of it. I had fun but I still need to grab Richard and head to someplace we can get some good crosswinds and keep working on landings. A funny side note is that our last flying club meeting had the topic of "The Perfect Landing." It reminds me of a joke that goes "Santa Clause, a perfect landing, the Easter Bunny and some rain all converge on the same spot. Which one has the right of way? The rain because the other 3 are figments of your imagination.

My E-logbook.com