Originally Posted by
FullOppositeRudder
FR24 shows a series of circuits with touch and goes prior to the event, all of them seemingly uneventful. The underlying reason why this one turned out as it did with such a high AoA being commanded is not readily apparent.
From what I understand, an instructor needs to see you do 3 circuits first before they will sign you go for a solo.
On FR, I noted there were 3 circuits, with the aircraft having a gap of 10 minutes before going up again for the 4th and final circuit.
I assume this was the instructor assessing the student as competent, and he pulled over to get out and therefore was possibly watching this unfold.
I'd imagine that was not a good feeling either.
Unfortunately, at some point in earning this thing we call a pilot licence, we all need to go solo eventually.
And someone needs to make the decision that we are ready for it.
But once we are all alone in that plane, all sorts of things can happen.
You can't always predict everything that will happen at that point, nor how someone will respond.
There are a few dangerous points in flight training, and early solos I would imagine are an unfortunately inescapable, but necessary risk and I'm sure they did their upmost to reduce that risk as much as possible.
Even as someone preparing for CPL, I still have instructors that I've hopped in with who have not flown with me before and admit to feeling unrelaxed as we near the runway for the first few tiems.
It's a hard (probably a good) habit for them to 'kick'.
I had one guy that wasn't an instructor, just a friendly club member that did the intros at the time, coming over the fence start repeating over and over in my ear "65 across the fence" or something like that...
I'm like..
Can you shut up for a sec, a sudden unexpected burst of loud words from you is not what I need at 50 feet.
But I understood where he was coming from.