I finally did it!!!
My Fellow Ppruners
Please indulge me while I allow my sheer happiness to overflow for a bit – in your forum.
Yesterday I did my first solo. Not unusual on this website I hear you say.
However…I have been in the circuit for 6 months trying to learn to land in lovely (?) gusty crosswinds. The weather this year…on Saturdays in particular… has been well and truly crap. It prevented me building any confidence in myself and certainly tested my instructor’s reflexes and patience whilst I tried to invent new and novel ways of killing us both.
The conditions were so bad (to me!!) that I even went through a longish period when all I’d do is go-arounds. I was scared to get near the ground in case the wing hit the runway if a gust caught me out.
Through the months of frustrations a number of Ppruners have been chatting to me and virtually SHOUTING at me down the PM system telling me to RELAX!!!! To Kaptain Kremen, Whirlybird and StiknRuda – Thank you.
I was so overwhelmed and emotional yesterday that I’m sure I forgot to thank the most important person in this saga – HFD (His anonymity intact!!).
Thank you for having the faith in me to do it on a day when the circuit pattern had been changed and the cloud base was low.
Thank you for giving me the confidence to look at the empty seat and not freak out. Thank you for drumming the pre landing checks into me so that I really didn’t have to think too hard how to do them.
Thank you for teaching me sufficient restraint so that I didn’t press the PTT and let everyone know how bad my language can be when an airplane suddenly appeared in front of me on Final (I didn’t even hear him call downwind!!).
Thank you for giving me the confidence to execute a go around, moving onto the dead side and keep the little bu**er in sight at all times.
Thank you for giving me the confidence to fly the “old” circuit pattern to try and get separation between us.
Thank you for teaching me so well that I could fly at the right speed, at the right height and on the right heading whilst frantically trying to spot where the hell he’d gone.
Thank you for teaching me to focus and give the approach my undivided attention so that I actually wasn’t the slightest bit nervous of what I was about to attempt (am I stupid or what??)
Thank you for coming to the airplane, opening the door, crouching down on the wing and giving me the biggest smile.
I don’t know if thank you are the words for laughing at me when I was obviously so emotional that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry but was certainly starting to shake – but at least I didn’t fall apart until after the airplane was parked and made safe and for that I thank you.
I don’t know if thank you is the right thing to say for letting the CFI shove a camera at me and try to get me to smile – totally impossible at the time - I was still too shocked that I’d actually done it.
But I will say thank you for when I finally managed to get out of the airplane, you could see how much my hands were shaking and you put your arm around me for the photo.
Thank you for getting all of the staff to hunt high and low for the first solo certificates because you wanted me to have it THAT DAY.
Thank you for finding the corkscrew for the wine my partner brought to the club when I text him the magic word – “SOLO”.
Thank you (hmmm) for being the strictest, hardest, most critical, perfectionist instructor in the air – the hard man reputation is deserved!!
But also thank you for being the nicest, sweetest, gentlest and supportive person on the ground – Hard man reputation now well and truly shattered!!!
Going solo isn’t like doing aeros, where the adrenalin kicks in and the grin starts immediately.
It had to sink in….
I had to think about what I’d done and re-live virtually every hour I’ve been in the air up until that moment – all the frustrations, the doubts, believing I’d never come up to HFD’s expectations and that I was letting him down.
I had to re-live my 2 circuits and one landing, probably several hundred times.
I had to drink copious amounts of red wine at the Clubs Halloween party last night and wake up this morning without a hangover but a BIG smirk on my face.
Whilst writing this… the smile is getting bigger, and bigger and I’ve re-lived the moment again and again.
In case you didn’t get it HFD – THANK YOU.
You’ve made me the happiest person on the planet.
Your totally, utterly, devoted student
MG