My Student Pilot's Log: Postsolo

Flights 18-19

Flight 18: Mon, Jan 15: First Unsupervised Solo. (.7 / 20.6 / 1.1)

That third number in the header is my total solo time to date.

I finally flew alone away from the airport. It had been almost two weeks since my only solo flight, so I was anxious to venture off on my own, wondering how well it would go. It was great, and if I hadn't needed to return the plane on time and get to ground school I could have stayed up for another hour.

The wind was calm today (maybe 7 knots) and the temperature was about 70. The ceiling was 12,000 feet, fairly solid, and since it was late afternoon there was a sun sandwich between the clouds and the horizon. The air was smoother than ever.

I made a point of going up just for the joy of it, not working on any skills beyond maintaining a constant, legal altitude, and scanning for traffic. Outside the pattern I saw no more than three other aircraft in half an hour. Even the radio was quiet (yes, it was working!). Sometimes on the weekend it's hard to get a word in since our frequency is used at so many airports within range.

I flew around our training area and a few other places within a few miles of the airport. I got a chance to break in my new push-to-talk switch, which I had bought a few days ago but didn't use last time since the Warrior has a built-in one.

As it was for my first solo, the best thing about the flight was that everything about it was routine. (Although the ability to show up and fly myself without an instructor, just like a real pilot, was pretty cool, too!) I made it back without losing track of the airport, entered the pattern properly, and did just one landing, which was decent for not having landed a Cessna in nine days.

I learned some more about what happened to the 150 that ran out of fuel. Our ground school class went to the hangar to see what was left of it. (Ironically, tonight's scheduled topic was flight planning.) The wings had been removed to fit the plane on a truck to bring it home; one wing was fine, the other was bent enough to resemble a nun's headgear. The cockpit and propeller were unharmed, but there was damage to the nose, fuselage, and tail.

Update 3/25/96: The plane has been sold for salvage.

Update 5/5/97: The National Transportation Safety Board issued its report on the incident.

Flight 19: Thurs, Jan 18. (.9 / 21.5 / 1.1)

I inadvertently put my name in the wrong column on the schedule for today, so we ended up taking a Cessna 172. The rest of the Cessnas were out, so this was another chance to fly something different. I found the 172 to be a cross between the other planes I've flown. It has the same engine, rental fee, and four-person capacity as the Warrior, and both of the larger planes have improved forward visibility, but otherwise the 172 is just a more powerful version of the 152. Since we had full fuel tanks, and the temperature was around 80, it was nice to be in a more powerful plane.

We flew up to Tampa North Aero Park (X39), a small airport consisting of a narrow runway and a couple of buildings. (One reason we went there was to look at a plane that's for sale.) The runway is narrow (50 feet) and surrounded by trees and has a right-hand pattern when landing toward the southeast as we did today (runway 14). Those differences mixed with a crosswind made it an interesting place to do some touch & goes.

There is no taxiway, and the parking area is next to the end of the runway, so we had to taxi down the runway in the opposite direction (back taxi) and make a U-turn before taking off.

Today's new manuever was a soft-field takeoff to simulate a grass or dirt runway. My landings were good today, except for one which my CFI politely referred to as pilot-induced oscillation, also known as a bounced landing. I've had a single bounce before, but not multiple times in one landing.

As I was trying to hold the plane off the runway, the wheels gently touched the pavement, and I thought I had another decent landing. The touchdown was too early, and we bounced up a couple of feet. My reaction at that point was wrong, pushing the nose down or pulling it up when the opposite should have been done, so the result was three or four small but embarrassing bounces. It happened too fast to remember the sequence, but the point is that instinct is not always right. I should have held the plane off longer or put the throttle in and gone around.

I'm surprised it took until now for this kind of landing mistake to happen. It was quite a lesson; my CFI saw it coming but let it happen for its educational value. I guess I didn't do too badly today, though, because when I got back and said I'd see him next time, he said I didn't need him for the next flight, and took himself off the schedule. I think that's a vote of confidence, or maybe he doesn't want to see another messy landing!

Glossary