Hi Tall Guy:
Yes, I think that’s good advice, and I think I should do that. I certainly went solo before the Air Law, and also for my solo nav (#1 in my opening posting above). I did have Air Law and HPL by the time of the QXC. As I say, certainly not the Nav - I hadn't even read the book.
As for the learning experience - well, the up side is that I think I learned far more from the experiences I actually had than I would from all going very smoothly. It just didn’t feel so good at the time!
TP
Hi bar shaker:
For the short nav (#1 above) no phone calls were made. There were no landings and the Instructor did not suggest or make any calls. The best advice I got over if the weather deteriorated was “turn round and come back”. Well, of course when I turned behind, the weather had closed over the airfield, as I wrote.
On your last para, that’s a pretty sore point with me. I specifically asked my Instructor before I left for the flight should I not identify myself on R/T to the ATC as a Student Pilot on QXC, and I was told no, that they would know this from the prior tel call. It would appear that what happened, of course, was that the airfield was so busy just at the time I arrived that the ATC missed that I was an SP. He was tearing someone off a strip as I reached the VRP for not reading instructions back, and then later for 2 people (a/c) talking at the same time; I was asked how I would like to join, meaning I did not have to join overhead (which I had firmly planted in my mind as how I would do this) and I guess this threw me just a little too! But then, after my return, the Instructor said it was clear from the details of my flight that the ATC didn’t realise I was an SP and that - from now on - they would instruct all subsequent SPs on QXC to identify themselves on R/T as such to ATC. Great for others following. Pretty poor show for me, I think.
TP