Hey
Just an update - my solo nav was delayed initially due to bad weather and me falling ill in between (stomach bug or something...) but I'm well now and yesterday went for my solo nav. The nav to the airfield went amazingly well - timing was perfect, headings were great, and I didn't find myself off course even once. All the time I was in the air I kept repeating Aviate Navigate Comm and it worked out really well. So I landed at the airfield, felt a great sense of achievement and was quite happy with myself!
Then on the outbound flight, I'm doing the power checks and I get a huge rpm drop and the engine starts to sputter and sound really rough! And I'm thinking "please no, not on my first land away!".. anyway, so I followed the instructions in my checklist, to no avail. Called my instructor up and he gave me more instructions - tried those, still to no avail. In the end, a friendly chap came over and suggested I should ask the maintainence guy that just happened to be parking another plane just opposite me. So they have a look at the plane, found a dead spark plug, and by the time it all got fixed, around 2 hours had passed since I landed and the airfield had become unlicensed. Anyway, a couple of instructors came over in another plane to pick me up and we flew out.
Just thought I'd share this with you guys. My first land away was a bit more eventful than I thought, but I loved the trip flying over to the airfield on my own and I just can't wait to do it again.