Solo cross-country OR I flew the plane a long way by myself

The skies were wild and crazy today so it wasn't a day I would have imagined doing my first solo cross-country trip. In fact, when I got to the airport, the ceilings were quite low and we had to watch and wait to see if the flight would be a go.

Waiting out some pretty ugly weather

I have to admit, I had mixed feelings about whether I wanted it to clear up, although I wasn't terribly nervous. But there I was, already at the airport, and I knew I had to do the flight if I ever wanted to be a pilot. Eventually, the lower cloud layer did start to clear off and it seemed more likely that I could go.

Looks like it's clearing up

The plan today was for me to fly the route in the opposite direction to when my instructor and I did it way back in February. So, the decision was made that I would go and I got in the plane to head for Camrose. The flight to Camrose is about 20 minutes long, once you're up. The weather looked wild all around me but, except for some turbulence, it was really no issue. Navigating was no problem because there's a big lake at the halfway point, which is easy to see right after departure and then once you're at that lake, you can see Camrose, a small city, in the distance. The airport at Camrose was quiet and my landing was a beauty. I texted my instructor to tell him that I had landed. He told me he was proud of me! I got a bit choked up at that!

I taxied back down to the hold short line of the active runway and recorded my times. Then I looked up at the sky in the direction of Vegreville, my next destination:

On the ground in Camrose, looking northeast. I'm going that way!

I didn't think that looked so good! I texted my instructor again and sent him this picture. He told me to take off and see what it looked like and come back to Cooking Lake if I had to. So I took off and set my heading but as it turned out, this ugly mass of clouds was just to the west of my track. It wasn't too bad along my direct path.

Between Camrose and Vegreville, 2000' above ground

My biggest challenge on that leg was spotting a massive flock of migratory birds about 3 miles ahead of me and wondering whether I'd have to deviate around them. Thankfully, they were out of my way in time! When I got to Vegreville, I couldn't find the airport, although Vegreville is a small town and I knew the airport was on the northeast side. I circled and finally saw it. I had a bit of a crosswind there so the landing was slightly off but safe and OK. Again I recorded my numbers, checked in with my instructor, and taxied back down for the take-off.

Just as I pushed in the power for the take-off, I had a fleeting thought that I had forgotten my line-up checks, a quick review of all the systems to be sure they were all good. Unfortunately, that meant I took off with 20 degrees of flaps (which I had forgotten to retract after landing), which makes it pretty tricky to climb out and hold the airspeed since the flaps create drag. I got the flaps up and the plane started to climb better! Relief! Slightly freaky moment.

I had some blue sky on the last leg so it was a nice flight, although I had to stay a little lower to avoid clouds and rain. It seemed like no time at all and I was landing back at Cooking Lake, with 105 nautical miles (195 km) covered and 2 more hours of solo flight time done!

Heading home to Cooking Lake from Vegreville

Taking a breather

After I finished the written exam on March 9, the weather got even worse than it was in January and February. Lesson after lesson was cancelled. I managed to fly on March 15 and tried a few times to schedule my short solo cross-country, but it became so frustrating to wait and keep psyching myself up over and over again. So, at the end of March, I told my instructor that I needed a break and would fly again when the university term was over in early April (I am a professor). Flying is amazing and I love it but I am outside of my comfort zone almost all of the time and that gets tiring. I ended up taking a month off. I think it was healthy to take the break and return with renewed energy and motivation.

Meanwhile, there's the written exam

In addition to all of the flying, there is a theory and written component to flight training. I took ground school in the fall and finished it just before Christmas. I really enjoyed it. Being an academic, I'm pretty happy in a classroom, although this is very new and different content than I have ever encountered before. The general topic areas covered are air law, weather, navigation, and aeronautics.

There was no exam in the ground school itself. Student pilots do the Transport Canada written exam at some point during their training, according to their own timing and schedule. I attended every class of ground school but didn't do a lot of reading during that time so during January and February, while the weather was bad, I studied hard for my written exam.

I did a computerized practice exam and numerous written and online practice questions to prepare myself and assess my readiness. Today I wrote the actual exam. It's a 100 question, 3 hour, multiple choice, computer administered exam, which I wrote at my own flight school. It tests the four areas that are taught in ground school. It took me 2 hours and 15 minutes. I found it totally fair but pretty difficult. I was exhausted when I finished. I didn't have a good feeling about my performance. I went to get the chief flight instructor so he could get my score and I apologized to him in advance because I wasn't even sure I passed. Well, haha, I did pass and I did great! I was amazed! I truly couldn't believe it! What a relief!  

Finishing that exam is a big step in the right direction. I'm glad to have it behind me and I'm pleased, after all, with how I did. It's validating!

My big scary flight

Finally, finally, finally I was able to do the dreaded solo flight out to the practice area to work on the upper air exercises (stalls, steeps turns, slow flight). I've been waiting since mid-January and I was so nervous about this. Sick with worry. But today, the weather was beautiful and it was time to suck it up and fake it till I make it.

Naturally, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined it would be. I just went out there and did my thing. Being a nice day, the practice area airspace was a little busy. That was actually good, though, because I had to talk on the radio to manage separation from two other planes out there, and hearing myself on the radio, sounding oh so confident, helped me believe I could do it. At first, I just flew around and enjoyed the view.

Then I took a deep breath, pulled the throttle to idle, pulled back on the controls, back some more, stalled the plane and recovered. Whew! OK, that was OK! Next I did a couple of steep turns, allowing myself to keep the plane banked at just over 30 degrees (instead of 45) to get a feel for it. Good. Good. Then I eased the plane into slow flight, where you fly the plane in a very nose-up attitude at about half the normal airspeed (near the stall speed), the point of which is to practice handling the plane at a slow speed, such as during landing. I did well with that! Amazingly, I spent an hour out there playing around and it was fine!

Figuring that was pretty good for today, I headed back to my airport. That's where I had a little trouble. I had to do three go-arounds, where you abandon an approach or landing that isn't going right, and go up to re-join the circuit and try again. Even the landing that finally got me down was a bit iffy but it worked. My instructor saw me do that one. Once I had shut down and we were talking it about it, I noticed he was rubbing his hand over the engine cowling, as if he was comforting the plane after the hard landing I had inflicted upon it.

I feel great about the flight and am so proud of myself for doing 1.5 hours on my own! The experience was slightly tainted by my landing difficulties but I ended up flying again this afternoon with another instructor to do some landing practice. He said my approaches were bang-on and he gave me some great tips to improve the landings.

This is hard stuff. I know I have work to do with the landings. But I am pleased with myself for the most part today.

A trip

The weather has been been crappy in the last six weeks, which has thwarted several of my attempts to fly. As well, there's my ever-present anxiety about the impending solo flight out to the practice area. I've just been waiting to get on with it so I can make progress and perhaps show myself what I can do. But yesterday turned out to be a gorgeous day and, just to break the frustration, we decided to have some fun and do the first of the cross-country flights that are required in the private pilot training. I have to do two cross-country trips, one "short," one "long" (at least 150 NM), each of them twice - once dual, once solo. Today was the short one. We went from our airport, Cooking Lake, to Vegreville and then to Camrose and then back home. It was a triangular route of 105 NM.

I enjoyed learning about flight planning in ground school and was excited to put it into practice. For this flight, I calculated the fuel requirements, wind corrections, and estimated times of arrival and mapped the route, found our headings, and identified suitable enroute checkpoints. We briefed the flight on the ground and then set off.

It was fabulous! The views were amazing and it was so great to go somewhere! It was quite easy to read the map, determine our location, and adjust the heading, although on the second leg, the landmarks weren't as clear so I had to compare map to ground a lot to be certain. I started to get the hang of flying the plane while looking down at the map and using the E6B flight computer (a circular slide rule) to calculate ground speed and ETA. The flight was uneventful except that, of course, it was beautiful and fun! Now, having done this with my instructor, I have to do it by myself, which I expect to do in the next couple weeks, weather allowing. I have a couple of solo excursions waiting for me now but today, I'm not going to stress. I'm just going to remember how great yesterday's trip was!

How to entertain yourself in bad weather

The weather for the last month has been mostly awful, as it was for a week in late November. Low ceilings, flurries, flurries, flurries, wind. We did entertain ourselves with some crosswind landings yesterday, which was great practice, but the real fun during the bad weather periods has been working on some of my instrument time in the simulator!

The simulator is harder to fly than the real plane, in terms of the responsiveness of the controls, but the stakes are a lot lower! At one point, I put the "plane" into a spiral dive and my instructor just clicked something on the control board and I was saved. For one lesson, we set the departure airport as Victoria, BC. For another, we flew out of LAX, although soon after take-off, we were completely in the clouds. I practiced scanning the instruments and making small corrections to keep the plane upright and flying straight. I eventually learned how to recognize and recover from unusual attitudes so my instructor didn't have to just bail me out with the computer settings. I also learned to use radio navigation instruments. It was very cool and interesting and I could see myself getting better at it. It's a helpful way to learn, a lot cheaper than the real plane, and a great option for those days when leaving the ground just isn't going to happen.

Dark comedy of errors

It was a dark comedy of errors at the airport this afternoon. I've been waiting a few weeks for good weather to do my next big solo flight. So with blue sky today, I thought I'd give it a try. But things didn't quite go as planned:

1) The crosswind was so strong today it was beyond my landing skill. So my instructor and I decided to go together but 2) A plane crashed on the runway and we had to wait for the runway to be cleared so we could go but then 3) We couldn't start our airplane because it's so cold and the mechanic couldn't start it even with the battery charger on so 4) We got into another airplane and were doing the pre-take off checks and discovered a dangerous mechanical issue (magneto fault). So, we decided that the flying gods were against us today and we wouldn't push it. 

Flying isn't always straightforward!