Thanks everyone. It is really a big day for me as I believe I have stepped over the first milestone of my aviation experience, it will continue further and further I am sure.
It was a calm day Saturday, we got a CAVOK too, but it was the busiest day I have ever seen in YMMB in all my circuit training. I never expected I will have my solo that day. Flew with the instructor first, there were about 4 or 5 planes in the circuits already when we prepared to depart. We had four circuits and my instructor told me to have a full stop, I thought immediately that it might be the time finally comes.
Landed and parked the airplane, we went back to the school and my instructor told me I will have my first solo then but we still need to do a little bit paperwork (forgot to sign-in in the first flight) and brief me a bit.
20 minutes later we went back to the apron. I was wondering why I was in such a surprisingly calm and not exciting. It feels just like I will just fly another circuit as the four I just did. Unfortunately, my feeling was proved wrong later on.
I dipped the tank, hopped in, taxi for runup and finally took off from 35R. The airplane did feel much lighter as my instructor briefed me before. It soon reached 1000ft even before I finished the turn to crosswind. I had to lower the nose while turning. As a side note, the DG was broken too, so solely rely on ground reference point. I intentionally flew the crosswind a few more seconds to get to the right spot to turn downwind.
what interesting happened from my downwind call, nothing is what I expected in my first solo, but it does put the circuit training I had in a very good test.
Reported turning downwind for full stop, tower advise I need to widen the circuit to follow a lancer approaching parkmore to come in before me. Without the lance in sight, I reported I am turning left a bit to widen my circuit but haven't seen that traffic.
While searching for the traffic I need to follow and flying a downwind wider than I usually do, tower called again to ask me if I see the lance from parkmore. I did not, but I saw a traffic at my 12 oclock. Report that and tower ask me to change plan to follow the one in front of me, which is a cherokee joining base from parkmore. In all my circuit training, I never was told to follow any airplane out of the circuit, not mention the change plan sort of thing, so this is the first time I see this complex situation, and unfortunately, I have to deal with it myself in my first solo.
To make space with the cherokee, I flew a long downwind and an unusual long base, which are all deviated from the circuit I just did or even the circuits I ever flew. At this time, I think my efforts on 10+ hours of circuit training finally paid off. I did not have any difficulty on flying the airplane while much of my brain power was on looking for traffic, talking to tower and thinking about how to deal with the situation, where to turn etc. I barely remembered I looked at the altimeter, but from the video I shoot, it seems I maintained the altitude no problem and the base descending are all good in terms of speed and profile.
In the middle base, lost track of the cherokee, so decided to ask the tower again if I am the no.1 now. They said he is on short final and I then caught him in sight. It seems I did not do anything wrong, so I turned final at exactly 600ft.
The final leg was flew carefully as it is flatter than usual because I was a bit far from the field, keep it at 65kts, and stabilised, it looked all good to me, time to flare and damn, floating up. I flared in my usual way, but the plane is lighter, so I pulled too quickly and floating up. Fixed it by releasing the back pressure a bit and flared again, the second time is fine, no bouncing and not a hard landing, but not on the centre line any more.
Right after my landing and I was still trying to recover from what I have been through, tower advise me to exit from 31L. I never heard this kind of instruction before and remembered we cannot use runway to exit, so puzzled on what I heard for a couple seconds, so asked them to say again, but while they say again, I had rolled past 31L. Trying to make it by stepping a bit brake but soon give up as it looked too dangerous for me to make it. Then heard in radio that the guy behind me was told to go around. It sounded he was very close to me indeed.
Taxied back to the apron and jumped off, my instructor was waiting for me. Shutting down and jumped off and I have finally completed my first solo.
In this first solo flight, what I learned from those many hours circuit training was put into a test. I did not realize at all before this solo flight that how much I have improved from those hours of training, but it does show me clearly that I am capable of flying semi-automatically and using my brain power to plan ahead and deal with the situation around me. If there were not that much training I had, it will be definitely a mess when I still need to concentrate on flying the airplane, and then fail to deal with the situation and falls behind the progress and screw up.
However, it also revealed my weakness, situational awareness is still a weak point of me. I will start working on this point while keep improving my flying techniques too.
Especially thanks to my instructor Charles, he is leaving the school for a great job in north, but he guided me with his knowledge and experience in past a few months, prepared me well with his high standard of proficiency, I will not be able to make it without him. It is a great fun to fly with you and all the best to you Charles!
Here is the video I shot from cockpit. Any comments are welcomed.
