The forecast was not looking good. Generally good weather but some bad spots around. It was going to be 50-50 if I was going to get my solo cross country done.
I telephoned SoloFlight and they confirm that the weather was currently fine. I jumped in the car and headed off.
As I drove to Humberside Airport the weather got better and better and I arrived with sunshine and blue sky.
I checked in and we discussed the weather. Richard thought it might be posible so I went into the briefing room to plan.
Half and hour later I came out with all my figures for Richard to check, I glanced out of the window and a large bank of low dark cloud and swept in from nowhere.
Richard confirmed my figures were correct but that there was no way he could send me out in that and it looked like it was settling in for the day. I asked if I could do some solo circuits instead, so Richard called up the tower and checked with them. They cleared it so I went off to check out the plane.
This was my first ever time starting out on my own. Before Richard had always come with me, at least for the frst couple of circuits. I did a slow careful ‘A’ check of the plane and then strapped myself in.
I started the engine and then checked the radio for the latest ATIS. Noting down the QNF and information code I then tuned into the tower to make my radio call.
“Humberside Tower, Good morning. This is Solo02 …” I continued but I was not convinced anyone could hear me. I could not hear my voice in my headset. The tower did not respond either. I checked my headset, unplugged and then plugged back in again. I then checked the radio again. I could hear the tower fine so I tried again. I still could not hear myself. I switched over to the second radio and tried again. Still no voice in my headset. I went over the shutdown procedures and switched off and shutdown. Then I got out and went back to the office. I knew I had to be making a simple mistake but what!
Richard my instructor twigged straight away. The owner of the plane had flown it last and had turned off the main radio select panel knob to off. Not a control I had ever used before it was normally set to position one. I went back to the plane to try again. This time with success.
Within a short while I was back in the air flying solo circuits. My first attempt at landing was the old mistake, I rounded out to high. Instead of letting the plane drop and maybe bounce, I realised my mistake and added power and leveled off. Once stable flying just above the runway I lowered the nose again and reduced the power again. I rounded out again this time at the right height. As the speed dropped I pulled back on the yoke until I gently touched down. Quickly removing all flaps I increased power to full and took off again.
While on my downwind checks I suddenly realised I was heading into a bank of low cloud. I quickly turned on the carb heat, reduced power and dropped a couple of hundred feet. Being at 800′ feet I looked carefully out. Yep I think I would get under it. I turned off the carb heat and increased power back to the cruise.
I was not sure where I had got to on the downwind checks, but I was now late for my downwind radio call. I made my radio call but this time was not cleared to base but was asked to orbit instead. I started my downwind checks again as I could not now remember were I had got to and quickly got them in before it was time to turn onto the now forbidden base leg.
I was in a left hand circuit and at the end of the downwind leg instead of turning left I banked a hard right, increasing the power slightly and pulling back slightly to maintain height. Wee! Round and round I went, having a little fun, but keeping an eye in were I was. It soon became clear from the chat on the radio that we had a helicopter messing around on the runway so we all had to wait.
Eventually the helicopter cleared off and I was given clearance to land. Once again I still rounded out to high but I got down safely. Due to the delayed start that was my last landing. I was running out of time and as I had to drop my height to 800′ feet to avoid some low muck blowing over on that circuit I decided to call it a day. Better not to push my luck.
I still need some more circuit practice but at least I was spotting my mistakes and correcting them on landing.
Now heres hoping for that mythical good weather.
