Ignacio's First Solo Flight!

[Ignacio]

Friday was a bit dramatic as I spent the morning trying to do my written pre-solo test while simultaneously dealing with some night job stuff that spilled over into the day. I passed the test, but was pretty frazzled and went home expecting to scratch scheduled flying in the afternoon with my instructor.

But, I put my cell phone down for an hour, deliberately did a thorough pre-flight plane inspection to settle myself into the aviation routine, and told my instructor I wanted to go flying. He smiled, nodded his head, and jumped in for three laps around the pattern. Then he told me to go back to the ramp, wrote a lot of things in my log book, got out, and told me to do three more laps exactly the same way.

I did my best and here’s the video of it including decent audio with Air Traffic Control and little pop-up balloons noting different aviation things including my mistakes.

Spoiler alert: I make it back alive, unharmed, and didn't hurt anybody.

are really cool to look at.

 

[FJReady]

Congratulations Iggy! You're into a whole nuther level of traveling now.

 

[Fred W]

That's pretty cool, Matt. Congrats on the milestone day!

 

[Ignacio]

Congratulations Iggy! You're into a whole nuther level of traveling now.

Tell me about it! At the VERY worst the FJR burns about 4.3 gallons of $2/gallon fuel an hour and more like 2.0 gph at comfortable cruising speeds. The plane I'm flying is sort of the equivalent of a KLR and burns 8.4 gallons of $5/gallon fuel an hour that smells like model glue.

However, the sky speed limits are much less onerous.

 

[JamesW]

Good to see you coming back.

 

[Viper Pilot]

Congratulations! Good on ya!

 

[FJRay]

Rock On Matt

. Flying is good fun. Now you need to do an iron butt in the air

 

[DennisJ]

Congratulations. I soloed in 1965 from Ephrata while enrolled in the BBCC Commercial Aviation Program in Moses Lake. First graduating class, all 25 of us, finished in 1967. We were based at the old Moses Lake Muni for the first year and moved out to the newly decommissioned Larson AFB in 1966. What a difference in airports. 1300 feet is nothing compared to the 10000+ available at Larson. Lots of Boeing aircraft around also so we were all introduced to wake turbulence during approach and takeoff. Interesting time.

 

[Intech]

Congrats. My dad was a pilot. I hope to do that someday myself.

 

[Ignacio]

1300 feet is nothing compared to the 10000+ available at Larson.

That's ABSOLUTELY part of my near future as well. It's likely my first long-distance trip will be to Moses Lake and back with my instructor. 13,503' long x 200 feet wide for those B-52s of SAC yesteryear makes a surreal experience for a plane that works in those 1,300 footers. My instructor notes it's a perfect place to practice simulated take-off engine failures by landing, taking off, engine failure, landing, taking off, engine failure, landing, etc.......with runway to spare.

Or he said another option is to land on the runway sideways with Cub.....with distance to spare.

 

[Pterodactyl]

Congratulations Iggy! You're into a whole nuther level of traveling spending now.

Modified for accuracy.

Congratulations!

 

[mcatrophy]

Brother and brother-in-law were both private pilots, both now stopped for health reasons.

Been up with them, it's just like motorcycling but in three dimensions .

Enjoy.

Nice landing, by the way.

 

[Morecowbell]

That's very cool, congratulations!

A 1978 C-172N...my dad owned that exact model from 1985 to 1987, and my brother and I each put 250 hours on it while building time and earning our instrument ratings. What a great airplane. Even though the Lycoming O-320-H2AD engine was supposed to be quite troublesome with the single drive for dual magnetos, ours was very reliable. Maybe we just got lucky? I sure was sad when Dad decided to sell it. At least we got to ferry it to the buyer for one last big cross-country trip. Dallas-Walnut Ridge AR-Lexington KY-Harrisburg PA.

Runway 30 at PSC...I've landed on that one many times. Arriving from the southeast, I can always spot the rail yard before I spot the airport. I also landed at PSC (21R) on my CRJ type-rating ride back in 2002 with a simulated single-engine approach. I landed a bit longer than I should have, and I really heated up the brakes to get stopped at the end. The check-airman wasn't too concerned about it and passed me anyway.

You'll have a lot of fun when you start doing cross-country trips.

 

[SouthernCruizer]

Congrats! Hope you have many great hours soaring above the mere mortals below.

In the future, go for the Cardinal...I had one a few years ago..high performance wing, NO struts, big *** doors, good leg/shoulder room for passengers, etc, all great, but beware the dreaded stabilator! LOL

 

[HotRodZilla]

NICE! Glad you finally got that knocked out.

 

[hppants]

That was cool. I enjoyed listening to the communications.

 

[Niehart]

Congrats Matt!

Just be careful of those clouds that look like sheep ...

 

[wnyfjr]

Awesome! I still remember my first solo. It felt very wierd sitting in that C152 by myself in the pattern...

I got my ticket in SoCal (Palomar CRQ) and also did some flying in the SF Bay area out of SJC and Reid-Hillview RHV. I landed a couple of times in the central valley at an old SAC base (B52's) with a 10,000' runway. I tried my best to land long just to shorten the taxi to the first turnout, but I still felt like I went a mile after touchdown just to clear the active!

The fun is just beginning.

 

[Tanker]

Awesome stuff Matt.

Congratulations!