Flying solo student pilot

[turnoffthepapis]

Having completed solo navs to the point of flying a near perfect line, and thouroughly enjoying not so good flying conditions (weather), does enybody have feedback for if this buzzing bug could lead to over confidence, thus producing poor piloting. or perhaps I should sit back and enjoy the confidence.:cool:

[flyingwelshman]

If you think you are perfect you are not!

At the end of every flight, try and think of something you could have done differently, or better. This can be pre, during or post flight.

Everyday is a school day!

Apart from that, well done on doing so well - keep it up, and ENJOY! :O

FW

[RichyRich]

I recently did my first solo nav, and thought 'this is going to be a walk in the park'. The first leg should have taken me overhead a GA field: didn't see it, but other land marks told me I was on track.

The second leg was onto a heading of (say) 330, I turned onto 320 and didn't realise until ATC told me where I was when 'granting' flight information service. (What would you call that? I request, they grant, I confirm). Concentration kicked in, got back on track, and the rest was uneventful and very very enjoyable.

Waiting for a gap in the weather for the next solo, I will more be prepared this time. I hope.

[FlyingForFun]

Turnthepapisoff,

Just out of interest, what were the weather conditions when you did this flight? Exactly how low did you have to go? How good/bad was the visibility?

I find it hard to believe that an instructor would send you out solo in conditions that weren't well within your capabilities. So, although weather forecasters have been known to be wrong, I would guess that the conditions weren't actually bad enough to cause any worries, and that the feeling that you experienced is perfectly healthy.

The first time you get caught out by the weather when solo will be very scary. You most certainly will not get a buzz out of it. You will hopefully land safely, and then you will review the flight and decide if there was anything you could have done better. Should you have even taken off to start with? Once you saw the weather deteriorating, did you carry on for too long? Was there any point in the flight when you wouldn't have been able to get to an airfield safely if necessary?

If you don't experience this fear, that's when you need to worry about over-confidence.

Congrats on your solo x-country!

FFF
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[stillin1]

Trust me - you ain't that good that relaxing is the next step!

If it all went as planned - then all that means is that you had a good plan, a good aircraft and in-flight conditions that were satisfactory. Never relax, enjoy the easy times but always consider the plan B. - when the sh@t hits the fan. One day it will

Soz for the little dampener, but thems the facts of aviating life.

PS Do keep having fun though!:cool:

[turnoffthepapis]

Thanks for the good replys folks, gives me an insight as to how I should really constantly revise my flight performance..... as for the weather it was "sc2300" over the moors (1700agl) which made me decide if to turn back but vis was good nevertheless and I switched to plan B and flew my alt track via the coast. I was just so happy to find the airfields. But im sure I will klutz that up sooner rather than later. Off to Wales tomorrow before cross country qualifier, and that I really cant wait for. fingers crossed for the weather eh! and again cheers all:cool:

[FlyingForFun]

SCT at 2300' in good vis sounds like perfectly good conditions to me, especially since you had already pre-prepared an alternative route that avoided the high ground. Just tricky enough to be interesting, without being dangerous, I would have thought.

Have a read of the Go/NoGo decisions thread (http://www.pprune.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=95484). Although I said on that thread that I wasn't a big fan of setting yourself a definite limit, why not follow M14P's suggestion of noting those conditions in the Notes column of your logbook. Then, the next time you see similar conditions, you'll know they're within your limits. But if you see clouds much lower than that, you'll know you're in un-charted territory. The fact that you posted in the first place suggests that this may be getting close to your current personal limits for this type of cross-country flight, although I'd expect your personal limits to become lower after you get PPL and get more experience.

FFF
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