PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - First solo(nearly)
View Single Post
Old 11th May 2006 | 20:49
  #5 (permalink)  
Shaft109
20 Anniversary
 
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 370
Likes: 13
From: Uranus
first solo

Don't worry about it, it'll come eventually.

Like Gingerbread man, it came out of the blue when after a good hour of circuit bashing in turbulent summer air, i was knackered and was just looking forward to getting out and having a p!ss. The boss just said, "O.K. I'm going to get out now. Just do as you've been doing." that was it - no time to be afraid.

N.B. I had a bit of a disagreement with my instructor up to this point on the final approach/flare as i had unwittingly developed my own little way of doing it, and he thought I was doing something else.

I learned in a motor glider with a 60ft wingspan and when deploying the airbrakes the change in the aerodynamics caused the nose to slowly pitch down and thus increase speed so you had to add a little back pressure to compensate, but i didn't retrim so the stick still had a firm (forward) pressure which I just held against my hand and as the speed bled off in the flare the pressure faded so I used that to judge my speed. But he though i was actively trying to push forward and this caused quite a bit of friction that wasn't helpful.

My point is (if that long winded pile of tosh doesn't make sense) make sure you understand exactly why the instructor wasn't happy as it could prolong the problem.

Good Luck!
Shaft109 is offline