5igmund.com

As you can tell by the title today I did my first solo! It was very exciting. The story goes something like this. Showed up to where I have been flying for the past month while N13329 has been down this morning around 1045 and finished up a few bits of paperwork while they got N9584L ready to fly, it was running rough so they put in some new spark plugs and gave her a bit of a tune up. Once that was ready I did my pre-flight and we were ready to go. At this point I had no idea I was going to solo but I did have all the paperwork done so when Will thought I was ready we could do it. So we set out to do some more practice landings and some power off landings. So we went out and did three full stop landings, on my third I knew something was up when Will was digging in my bag and pulled out my logbook. I kind of knew something was up because he had really not said a word except motioned to pull the power all the way off on my first landing to get rid of the float. When I said I had pulled all the power off we discovered that after the “tune up” the plane would not idle below 1000 rpm’s which gave us a bit of float during my landing flares. So we landed on my third one and Will said we should taxi back to Scotchman because I was going to go “terrorize the pattern” He asked if I had any questions and told me not to forget to lock the door or call the tower for taxi clearance. Then I was on my own to go do three takeoffs and landings. It was all quite the rush and flew by so fast. Really there is nothing compared to the first time you take the controls all on your own and the wheels leave the runway, you realize that well yes that takeoff was optional but damnit I have to land this thing. Really it all went smoothly and I just had a great time. After my last landing I asked to go back to scotchman but they had me turn right and contact ground. I contacted ground who had my taxi to runway 32L ( I was in the middle of the airport) as I am going there the controller says something like well you could have just gone the shorter way. I replied “say again tower” he said nevermind. I think he realized he had just sent me the long way around the airport. After a long taxi back to the barn, I was greeted by Will with a handshake and congratulations. So now I have my first .5 hrs solo, 3 solo takeoff/landings, and now I can go terrorize the pattern within reason and after I call will, so great day and I will have the picture up soon!