Mtns2Skies
Final Approach
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- Jul 12, 2008
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Mtns2Skies
So after 2.5 years and 93 hours of flight training I finally turned 16 on Jan 23rd. Too windy to fly, but today I finally soloed. CFI had me do 15 touch and goes (Because of excess traffic and fog) and finally once it quieted down he told me to call full stop.
I taxiied over to the terminal where my parents were waiting with my handheld listening in and dropped him off. I followed the checklist in the startup and got gradually more nervous as I called for taxi and taxied over to the run-up area. Absentmindedly I watched a V-tailed bo takeoff as I was taxiing. Another guy I knew at the flight school was in the run-up area for his commercial multi checkride, I wanted to wish him good luck but wasn't too certain if the tower would have been fond of that so I held my tongue.
A jet departed before me and I went up to the hold short line nervous as ever waiting for wake turbulence to clear and then a cessna to land. As soon as I lined up on the runway most of the nervousness cleared, I KNOW how to do this, and do it well. When I input the power the plane lurched forward being so much lighter. The 172N with 180hp climbed like a homesick angel and was at pattern altitude before the end of the runway.
Made my way around the pattern followed a Katana in for the touch and go and made a greaser my first solo landing
, being so light without my CFI it was a bit easier to do what I wanted. Next time around the pattern the landing wasn't as good, I ballooned up a bit but it was still fairly respectable. This time around the pattern there was a helicopter near where my downwind would be so I extended my upwind to give it room but it quickly descended out of my way once I turned downwind. Last landing was a decent one, I exited the runway and taxied back to tie-down.
An excellent day, one I've been waiting for for a loooong time.
I taxiied over to the terminal where my parents were waiting with my handheld listening in and dropped him off. I followed the checklist in the startup and got gradually more nervous as I called for taxi and taxied over to the run-up area. Absentmindedly I watched a V-tailed bo takeoff as I was taxiing. Another guy I knew at the flight school was in the run-up area for his commercial multi checkride, I wanted to wish him good luck but wasn't too certain if the tower would have been fond of that so I held my tongue.
A jet departed before me and I went up to the hold short line nervous as ever waiting for wake turbulence to clear and then a cessna to land. As soon as I lined up on the runway most of the nervousness cleared, I KNOW how to do this, and do it well. When I input the power the plane lurched forward being so much lighter. The 172N with 180hp climbed like a homesick angel and was at pattern altitude before the end of the runway.
Made my way around the pattern followed a Katana in for the touch and go and made a greaser my first solo landing
, being so light without my CFI it was a bit easier to do what I wanted. Next time around the pattern the landing wasn't as good, I ballooned up a bit but it was still fairly respectable. This time around the pattern there was a helicopter near where my downwind would be so I extended my upwind to give it room but it quickly descended out of my way once I turned downwind. Last landing was a decent one, I exited the runway and taxied back to tie-down.An excellent day, one I've been waiting for for a loooong time.
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