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Flying Solo at Nearly Half a Century
The Diary of My First Solo
Flight
By Mark
J. Donovan
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As I celebrated my 49th birthday this
weekend I couldn’t help but be a bit more reflective this year about my life to
date. I’m quickly nearing the half century mark and still feel I’ve got a lot
more to accomplish, but a lot less time to do it. By most accounts I’ve done a
lot, went to college for 6 years, got married, had 3 kids, was involved with a
successful high tech start up, traveled extensively around the world, and have
been overall healthy. That said, I still feel like I’m missing the one thing
that many a soul dreams of.
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The chance to really be free. Free
from the hassles of getting up every day and traipsing off to the same
corporation for the 8 to 5 work day, free from the work office politics and
gamesmanship, free from the daily crap spewed from the mouths of talking news
heads, and most importantly free to fully pursue my own personal interests and
my own company’s success.
I think my deep personal self reflection began at the start of my 48th year of
life as I watched my kids become young adults. As part of my life-review I
decide to make some changes and tackle goals that I had put on the back burner.
At the top of my list was to finally make the decision and commitment to
complete something I started 25 years ago, getting my private pilot’s license.
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Out of college and freshly married I
sporadically took pilot lessons, but I wound up putting my “hobby interest” on
hold due to a shortage of spare cash and the typical chores of life as a young
husband and father. Early this spring I decided it was now or never, so I
checked out a few local flying schools and got my flight physical. It wasn’t
until I was talking to the doctor that gave me my flight physical that I decided
upon what flight school and airport to take my lessons from. I chose Concord
Municipal Airport in Concord, NH for a couple of good reasons, safety and
financial reasons.
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Concord municipal airport has two
relatively long and wide runways and has little air traffic. Second, it has no
control tower. Consequently I could learn to fly without worrying too much about
bumping into anyone on the ground or in the sky, and I could spend more time
flying rather than watching the Hobbs Meter turn (effectively the money meter)
while sitting on the tarmac.
My first time up flying again was on a cold, high overcast spring day in a
Cessna 172 Skyhawk with a young pilot that could practically be my son. Though
young he was a qualified flight instructor who had thousands of hours flying
various types of airplanes. I quickly learned he was a stickler for details, and
for that I thank him. There is little room for error when flying an airplane and
a non-attentive student pilot should not be sitting in the left seat of any
airplane.
| After my first flight instruction in nearly 25 years I was
hooked again, however this time I was committed to following through and
getting my private pilots license. After 15.7 hours of learning how to fly
again, practicing take offs and landings, recovering from power on and off
stalls, and handling emergency situations, I soloed in late May early one
morning under perfect weather conditions. I had completed 4 take off and
landings with my flying instructor that morning. After the forth landing he
told me to pull over onto the taxiway because “I had used too much of the
runway on my landing”. |
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I hadn’t thought so, but I wasn’t going to disagree with my instructor. We were
half way down the taxi-way heading back to the end of the runway when he told me
to pull over on the apron. He then said, “You’re out of here.” He went on to say
my 4 landings were perfect and that I was ready to fly solo. While he endorsed
my student pilot license and logbook, I tried to control my legs from shaking as
I held the brakes. I was feeling both elation and trepidation. After what seemed
an hour, which was actually just 5 minutes, he put away the paperwork, told me
to do three take-offs and complete stop landings, and then return back to the
apron and park the plane. With that, he exited the plane and I was sitting there
all alone.
After a few minutes of running through my checklists, I was racing down the
runway and pulling back on the yoke. I was flying solo!! As the ground fell away
I began to relax and feel more comfortable. However, when staying in the pattern
and performing takeoff and landings things happen fast and thus a pilot is very
busy.
At 800 feet above the ground I began my left 90 degree turn onto the crosswind
leg. At 1000 feet above the ground, traffic pattern level, I was turning left
again for the downwind leg of the flight and radioing my intentions. Halfway
down the downwind leg, I began to configure the plane for slow flight. I reduced
power, turned on the carburetor heat, and lowered flaps 20 degrees.
As I looked out the left window of the plane and observed that I was flying
parallel to the end of the runway I pulled back the throttle to idle and pushed
the nose over for best glide speed. After only a few seconds, I saw that the end
of the runway was 45 degrees over my shoulder and began my base-leg turn and
radioed my intentions. At approximately 500 feet over the ground on my base-leg,
I made my turn on to final and lined up for my landing.
The runway came up fast, and as my instructor had taught me, I separated my
upper and lower body into two halves. I used my arms and the planes ailerons to
keep the plane lined up over the center of the runway, and I used my feet and
the rudder pedals to keep the plane parallel with the runway. As I came in over
the runway I pulled gently back on the yoke and began my flare out. A couple of
seconds later I heard the main wheels touch down. As the plane slowed down, I
gently released pressure on the yoke to bring the nose wheel down. I had
completed my first solo flight and landing.
As I taxied the plane back to the end of the runway I saw my instructor out in
the field giving me the thumbs up. I returned the hand signal and went back and
completed two more perfect landings.
As I parked my plane and shut down the engine, my instructor was at the door
with a pair of scissors in his hands as I stepped away from the plane. After a
big hand shake, as well as a hand shake from another pilot who had just flown in
on a small private jet and who had watched me solo, my instructor asked me to
turn around. While I faced away from him he proceeded to cut out the back of my
shirt. This is a ritual that has gone on for about a hundred years in the
aviation industry. History has it that when early student pilots first learned
to fly they did so in open-cockpit aircraft where the instructor sat in the back
seat of the plane. Since there were no radios the instructor got the student
pilots attention by pulling on the back of his shirt. Once a student pilot
soloed there was no longer a need for the back portion of the student pilot’s
shirt, so to signify the milestone the instructor cut it away.
So with my first solo flight behind me, I’ve continued on with my flight
training, sometimes flying solo, and sometimes flying with my instructor. Cross
country flights and learning air traffic control radio operation are now the
focus. With any luck, and a lot more learning, I hope to take my private pilots
test and have my check-out flight within the next few months.
Related Information
Flight Training Supplies from
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