PPL | Lesson #7 | 06-08-16 | Circuits and First Solo!

Everything just came together today – perfect weather, last minute cancellation, close family available, and G-BORK (I had been scheduled tomorrow to be in another PA28 which I hadn’t flown before).

All that was standing in front of me and going solo today were a few perfect circuits to prove to my instructor I can fly a plane. However, it wasn’t going to be made easy for me…

Circuit 1 – all was fine, there was lots of thermals today so my circuit height varied by + - 100ft but nothing too horrendous.

Circuit 2 is where things got interesting. On final, another plane announced they were on base leg (Issue #1 – they used the wrong call sign and had to be corrected, although I’m sure this is easily done). Since we were doing a touch and go this wasn’t an issue as we should be clear of the runway well before they wanted to land. On climbing out, the same plane announced that they were going around (obviously something had gone wrong with their landing, but I was conscious this had now reduced our already small amount of separation). On turning downwind, just before calling downwind ourselves, the same plan announces they are already on downwind and we had no visual whatsoever! Both my instructor and I were frantically looking out of the windows to get visual, before my instructor had to radio them to confirm their position. I was concerned that they may be climbing underneath us and since were in a PA28 (low-wing) we may not see them! Eventually we get visual and since they’d had to go around, they decided that they were going to use the ‘inner circuit’!? Whatever that was, my instructor let them know how he felt then we carried on, somewhat a little distracted. Distracted so much so that we hadn’t seen a glider coming straight at us around 1-200ft above! I only spotted it as it was directly overhead. It can be seen approaching just above the d of ‘affected’ at 22:20 in the video.

When reflecting on this lesson – it just shows how constantly alert you have to be, even during the slightest distraction.

Despite all the distraction on this circuit, I managed to pull off my first ‘greaser’ as they are affectionately known. Basically, a landing that you barely feel when you transition from air to ground. A quick check in my log book tells me I’ve personally landed 14 times before I achieved this.

Circuit 3 - just to really test me, on climbing out of this touch and go, my instructor gave me an Engine Failure After Take Off (EFATO) and then just before landing to let him out gave me a practice balloon. Just to finish off the 3 circuits perfectly, I pulled out another greaser whilst recovering from the balloon – I couldn’t have been more chuffed.

At this point, my instructor asked me to pull over for him to get out. After a quick brief to do one circuit and land, he left the cockpit and it was all down to me!

Overall it went well. On take-off, I didn’t really acknowledge the fact that I had a perfect crosswind so forgot to aim the ailerons into wind on take-off, luckily the wind wasn’t too bad. The circuit and approach weren’t perfect, but satisfactory given the situation. Just as I was about to touch down it began to drift to the right, my brain seemingly not telling me to correct by applying left rudder, perhaps thinking I was too low. Just as I contemplated applying full power to go around, there was a firm touchdown on the main wheels and I was down. Slightly disappointed it hadn’t been like the previous 2 ‘greasers’ but happy I’d just completed my first solo!

In all the excitement I left my annotated checklist behind in the plane. Nothing a quick text to my instructor couldn’t solve who helpfully removed it from G-BORK and popped it in my training file.

A look in my log book tells me that, since starting my PPL ‘properly’ at the start of July, I have done 6 lessons and 5.7 hours prior to my first solo! I have 9 hours total in my log book, just over 3 hours of which were from a few experience flights over 6 years ago – I vaguely remember chasing Virgin Pendolino’s down the West Coast Main Line! My instructor commented that I’d been the lowest hours student he has sent solo in over 40 years of training. I felt honoured.

Highlights
12:00 – Take off
18:25 – Touch & Go #1
19:50 – Start of issues…
21:38 – Turning downwind…
22:20 – GLIDER!! (Can be seen approaching just above the d of ‘affected’ at 22:20)
25:10 – Touch & Go #2
26:20 – First ‘Greaser’
27:33 – EFATO practice
33:12 – Landing for instructor to vacate…
34:10 – Practice balloon
35:17 – First solo brief
39:15 – First solo taxi
43:53 – First solo take off
50:08 – First solo landing

My next lesson is booked for Saturday 13th August where I’ll be doing more circuits and hopefully more solo!

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