first solo today - first PPRUNE post too, so make that two firsts in one day
Firstly I must say I like this thread a lot - well done mazzy for starting it. It's been a great source of inspiration for me and, no doubt, others too.
Well, I did my first solo circuit today at YPJT. A beautiful day with 15kts at 260 and blue skies. I've been waiting for it to happen for the last three hours or so, but every time I've gone up I've wound up doing something (or not doing something) that perhaps rattled my instructor a bit and put him off sending me out.
Today was IMHO, no different. I did an hour of circuits late this afternoon and was making an approach on one of them when ATC gave a guy clearance for 'immediate take off' whilst I was well into my final approach to 24L. This was also given him when the last plane to take off was about an inch off the deck too. My instructor muttered 'I don't believe he just did that' under his breath so it was go-around time.
No dramas really, except it was a busy circuit and I was flying up the live side (parallel runways) with two climbing planes below me and understandably getting a bit nervous about the situation. Probably should have asked my instructor before, but I put in a request for an early turn, which was approved with a long instruction to make no.2 to a Cessna somewhere mid down-wind. It caused my instructor to have a small fit and it put me off my stride a bit (a lot actually). Wound up delaying my early turn and then struggling a) to sight the traffic on downwind and b) (after a quiz from FI), to remember whether it was to be no.1 or no.2. to said plane. It shortly looked obvious what to do (I think) so I slotted in behind a plane and continued the circuit. Well, no planes fell out of the sky and I didn't hear any desperate RT trying to make the best of a mess, so I think I did OK (just!). I did get an ear bending about doing 'clever stuff' and 'I haven't taught you to do that'. etc
In retrospect, I'm nearly certain I should have left it to the ATC to shuffle everyone around whilst I was doing my go around and so rather than exchange the devil of a situation that I did know, of nervous anticipation for ATC instuctions for an unknown devil of me having to find my way into a new spot in a busy circuit and where everything suddenly begins to look like a Cessna!
Anyway, after a couple more conventional(!) circuits and some (what I thought were) pretty average landings, my instructor requested to ammend to a full stop. He took control on the ground and we did a Schumacher impression off at the first taxiway and headed for the runup area. It was at this stage pretty obvious what was going to happen but surprisingly I didn't feel any sense of trepidation or nerves.
We came to a halt and A, my FI packed his kit up and climbed out, giving me a few instructions to do one circuit for a full stop, go around if I had any proplems, a caution about the change in performance one-up etc etc. and then a last minute reminder about leaving the clever stuff out.
I re-did my pre-takeoff checks and then taxied off, successfully crossing the undershoot of a busy 24R and then cleared to line up after on 24L. To be honest, the only time a nervous thought went through my mind was when I went to full power. "I've got to get it right now!" The rest of the circuit was a non-event. The climb performance was impressive (for a 152!) and I was following a Singapore Airlines 172 around so absolutely no issues with finding traffic, keeping separation etc. The approach went well but the landing turned into two, although I managed to get the hold-off sorted for the second one. Then it was all over. It must have been a non-event, because ATC didn't even acknowledge my ground call as a first solo - in their defence they were pretty understaffed and overworked to today, even with a note on ATIS to that effect.
Well, that's my first milestone, with 20-something hours or so (I dared not add up my logged time just yet) and now for something a little different, more of the same!
Anyway, sorry if it's a bit rambling. Keep the diary entries coming guys and gals. There's probably 10 times as many people reading and gaining from them as the number of those posting.
Cheers,
Andrew