I flew my first solo yesterday.
My instructor had told me I was close to soloing a week ago and had given me a quiz to complete. I showed up yesterday as usual at SNS (Salinas, CA) and my instructor and I promptly took off to do a lot of pattern work. ATIS told me that winds were 120, and that the active runway was 13.
My instructor told the tower to give me a hard time, which they did very efficiently. From asking me to extend downwind (easy enough) to change from left to right pattern by overflying the runway (confusing initially) to asking me not to land, but do a low pass over the runway instead (very scary), they threw it all at me. They even stopped talking to me and signalled me with their light guns. I had no idea what the signals meant, except that green was good and red wasn't.
After that, we had breakfast at the restaurant in the terminal where we went over my pre-solo quiz. I should have seen it coming.
We took off for a couple more touch-and-gos when my instructor asked me to taxi to the tower so that we could visit the guys up there. As I was unbuckling my seat belt I asked him, "So we are going to see the tower?" and he replied with a huge grin on his face, "I am. You are flying. Do you have your log book and certificate?"
I felt my heart jump. I handed him my log and medical which he endorsed for solo flight. He also pointed to a line in the log and said, "I am not going to put any restriction on you because I trust your judgement. Don't make me look bad". I was too preoccupied with other things (like thinking of landing the plane alone) to feel thankful for his vote of confidence.
"Make three take offs and full stop landings. Take the time when you taxi back to the runway to just relax. Don't think about it too much. Just fly the plane." Easy for him to say that.
Anyway, by this time, the wind had changed direction so that I had a slight crosswind. Again, I did not want to think about it.
I taxied to the beginning of runway 13 to the run up area. I went through the checklists meticulously as I knew that the instructor wouldn't be with me to bail me out if I screwed up. I taxied up to the hold-short line and radioed tower, "Salinas tower, Tecnam niner-niner-one Tango Sierra holding short of runway one-three at alpha ready to take off, staying in the pattern".
"Tecnam niner-niner-one Tango Sierra runway one-three clear for take off, approved for left closed traffic."
"One-three clear for take off, one Tango Sierra."
And with that I taxied out on to the runway. All of a sudden, I felt very alone. The next second, a surge of adrenalin hit me. I checked flap position, trim, and opened the throttle wide open. I stayed on the center-line and rotated when I felt I had enough speed. The airplane climbed very quickly without the instructor.
I quickly set trim for best rate of climb. I turned cross wind and then downwind. Tower cleared me for the option on runway one-three.
I turned into base a bit too soon and had to lower my flaps more than normal for a steeper descent. I fiddled with the trim for the best glide speed.
I turned into final and lined up on the center-line. The wind was gusting now and the Tecnam was jumping around a bit. "Just fly the plane".
I watched my speed and it was OK. I put the nose down slightly to give me more speed due to the cross wind.
As I descended, I knew I would make the touchdown point and fixed my gaze at the end of the runway. Down, down, watch the descent rate, hold it steady, "Just fly the plane".
About 3 feet above the ground and sinking, I pulled back on the stick to get into the landing pitch or the "flare". And I just let the plane sink to the tarmac.
As I cleared the runway, tower radioed and said, "Tecnam niner-niner-one Tango Sierra, cleared to taxi back to runway one-three on alpha. That was nicely done."
Bliss. I made two more take offs and landings. I made one go around because I was too high and was made to go around once more by the tower because of another plane on the runway.
But that first solo landing will be close to me. It wasn't "perfect" by any text book. It wasn't even the best landing I had ever done. It was however, beautiful.
