At the beginning of this year, one of my resolutions was to keep up the skills that I worked hard to learn as a student. I developed a
chart of skills and resolved to tick them off each month, thereby solidifying the skill and not losing confidence.
I would like to report that I'm on track... But I'm not. :(
Like everyone, I have good excuses for why I have not flown enough and practiced my skills enough this year.
-Work
-Budget
-Weather
-Being out of town...
The truth is, despite the good excuses, I could have done a better job of maintaining and improving my flying skills.
Just like I feared, I have lost some confidence when it comes to solo cross country flying, controlled airspace communications, flight planning and various maneuvers.
Come on! Surely I am not the only one who hates practicing power-on stalls?
I digress...
The real story here, is that today I planned and executed a solo cross country. My first for a long while. Too long!
It brought back so many memories, for sure. I had almost forgotten how I am unable to sleep quite as well as I should, because of the endless thoughts of weather, fuel, flight planning and filing, checklists for gear and tasks and the anticipation of an early alarm clock wake up. (No, I'm not a fan of the forced wake up and seldom use an alarm.)
On top of this, I was flying the C172, which I realized, had never taken me further than 20 miles from KLMO before... AND... I was going to navigate with GPS instead of pilotage. Yes, my little head was quite full.
The plane was pre-flighted, fueled, topped off with another quart of oil and ready to go just after 8am.
I climbed in, started her up and proceeded to double check my communication and navigation devices.
The route:
KLMO - fly by KFNL - "comfort break" at KCYS - touch 'n' go KIBM - touch 'n' go KFMM - KLMO
About 225 miles.
I wouldn't say everything went exactly as planned, but I arrived in Cheyenne roughly on time, communicated reasonably effectively with ATC and landed safely with a gusty cross wind. I was loving the ease of a GPS while simultaneously wishing I had indeed done all the manual calculations that I used to... just in case!
The next airport, Kimball Nebraska, is one I had been to before. It's cute. As I got closer to it and realized it was gusting higher than Cheyenne and exhibiting a moderate cross wind, I made the decision to fly over, rather than touch and go.
The same thing happened with Fort Morgan. I simply didn't need to land... and had very little urge to taunt the Gods into teaching me a lesson!
Back on the ground in Longmont, I realized I had been gone for three and a half hours.
Time flies when you are having fun. :-)
This was my biggest solo flight so far. It felt good and I learned a lot.
Top 5 Lessons from flight:
1. Don't be afraid to refer to yourself as "Student Pilot" when you want ATC to be more patient with you.
2. Double check the GPS is communicating with the Ipad again, after separating the two during a stop.
3. When seeing and avoiding becomes necessary, keep "seeing them" for a while longer. You may have to avoid again...and again!
4. If I had flown another 25 miles, it would would have fulfilled the minimum 250 mile solo flight I will need before getting an instrument rating.
5. When I hear an alarming (and unexpected) beeping sound in the cockpit, mid flight, I am later unable to sleep well until I have determined exactly what it was trying to tell me!
