I soloed today! Feels great, although I had mixed emotions at the time.
On my last landing, some winds were starting to come in, so my approach required more work than usual. I was a little under glide slope, I added power to climb, back on slope, looks good, round-out, then touchdown. Right before I touched down, I was pushed to the left. Once I felt I was on the ground, I gave right rudder to correct, but nothing happened!
So now I'm directed toward the edge of the runway, thinking in my head that I need to get more weight on the nose, but since I'm in the Cardinal, relieving the elevator is an absolute no-no. (If you do, you'll be back into the air, and I didn't want that since I was directed towards the trees). I verbally gave the "Oh sh*t" because of my situation. I couldn't reject (I would fly into the trees). I didn't feel that my life was threatened (there is plenty of grass between the runway, the taxiway, and the trees), but I would have for sure harmed the airplane if I couldn't get it together.
Once I slowed more, my nose wheel began to function and turned me hard right (I'm still probably at 50mph), so hard that I actually felt as if I were going to tip over. I managed to straight it out, and finish the landing unscathed. Very scary.
My instructor said that I probably still had more than idle power at touchdown (since I had climbed to regain glide slope), and my left-turning tendencies caused the left swerve, and also kept my nose wheel up.
That said, I would swear my power was at idle before touchdown. I don't think I bounced (trust me, I done it plenty of times in this airplane). I didn't reject this landing when I identified I was below glide because the winds seemed to be picking up (I had noticed it the landing before). I was afraid the winds would only worsen. The instructor surprising didn't seem too concerned with the last landing, nor did another pilot I spoke with today.
Besides the last landing, it was a fairly normal flight. I was surprised at how different the airplane handled by simply dropping one person.
For those who are curious: 13 hours of dual instruction on the dot. I feel like if I had picked up landings easier I could have soloed at 11 or 12. No idea how people do it with less than 10 hours. There is simply so much ground to cover (from taxiing to Full Slip Deadstick landings)
Anyways, here I am back on the ground: