PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - PPL training, hours before 1st solo?
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Old 8th Feb 2006, 09:38
  #9 (permalink)  
FlyingForFun

Why do it if it's not fun?
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
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I agree - there's no rush.

As an instructor, I always head up to the control tower to watch my students' first solos, and chat to the controllers while I'm there.

Every now and then, something happens which means that a first solo isn't going to be a "standard" circuit - maybe priority traffic, for example. When things start to happen, the controllers will always check with me first: "I think I'm going to have to (get Helimed away/get the 737 in/tow the broken aircraft out of the way) before your guy, will he be happy (orbiting/going around/using a different runway/doing circus tricks)?"

Ok, so they've never yet asked one of my solo students to do circus tricks (they usually save that for when I'm on board), but I want to be absolutely sure that whatever ATC want to throw at you on your first solo, I can confidently tell the controller that you will be up to it. And if you happen to train at an uncontrolled field, there's even more training required, because you've also got to be able to make these decisions for yourself, rather than letting ATC do that for you.

FFF
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