Solo Workload/Capacity
Hi All
I've come back to flying after a break of 5 years. Got my SEP revalidation 10 days ago after 4.5hrs dual prior to to proficiency check which went very well (told I didnt need so much dual, but did it anyway). No problem. Back in the hot seat again. Planned my first solo trip (did a full plog etc) for 5 years and flew it yesterday. Two legs of 35mins including an intermediate stop at relatively busy airfield, visual navigation all the way (no GPS), LARS interaction, lots of other traffic around (being a fine Sat morning)..and of course managing my climbs&descents when leaving/arriving base airfield (which is just inside London TMA). So I was busy. On the return leg, particularly as I was approaching my base airfield and the TMA I started to feel like I was running out of capacity..and consequently I realised when back on the ground and had time to reflect some mistakes had been made, such as:
1. Not setting the airfield QFE, I left the alt on the regional QNH.
2. I left the squark (given by Brize LARS) on..ie didnt switch back to 7000.
3. Didnt to a proper overhead rejoin. When straight into a deadside decsent.
4. Whilst tunring crosswind I let the a/c get very out of balance...i.e for some reason I stopped using sufficent rudder
5. Dropped 100 below circuit height (partly due to above)
6. Forgot to keep fuel tanks in balance during return cruise.
7. I lost situational awareness on departure from the intermediate airfield for a few min...specifcally..failed to keep track of where other traffic was.
Lots of things went well, like (most) of the actual handling, R/T and the navigation, but I'm still very dissapointed in making the above mistakes. In my previous flying I've undertaken considerably more challenging trips..including ILS approaches in cloud (used to have IMC)...but I was shocked as to how far the solo capacity line had dropped...despite handling all the dual flights prior to the prof check quite well.
Does anyone else notice significant reduction in capacity/confidence when flying solo if not having done so for some time? and am I right in assuming the only way to resolve this is to continue to "get back in the saddle"?!
Any other views on solo confidence/capacity very welcome...
Cheers!