Flyin' Solo Part Two

Today I flew a complete flight from start to finish all by myself. The lesson was to solo in the traffic pattern for a whole hour. I was able to land seven times in that hour.

My first landing was all screwy- I was nervous from being in the plane alone again and put my flaps in at the wrong places- Came in kinda high and fast. The result was a relatively bouncy touchdown. Definitely not my best.


After that I did pretty well on my landings- I remembered to put the flaps in at the right times and I've developed better control of the plane in ground effect (which has always been tough for me in the past).

The only obstacles for my second solo was traffic and a tailwind. In spite of it being Veterans Day and therefore no military training traffic, there was still plenty of General Aviation Operations going on. At one point, I had to fly right traffic instead of left, which I am not used to. Also, even though there was a 3-5 knot direct tailwind, tower still had everyone landing and departing runway 21. As a result, my ground speed was much faster than what I was used to over the runway.

All in all, it was a good flight. I was able to comply with all ATC instructions and, other than my first landing, touch down smoothly every time.

The most important factor: I didn't crash the plane. :)