Solo!

Bman.

Bman.

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Jul 20, 2014
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171
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Springfield, Missouri
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Bman.
Well, my wife and non-aviation friends are tired of hearing the story already and I am still giving myself high fives. 5 laps around the pattern today and my CFI jumps out on the ramp and says "Do 3 more just like that. See you at the gas pumps". No nerves but heightened awareness of every bump and rattle. Wind picked up to 10G14 down the pipe. All three landings were smooth and straight. I would rank them as some of my best in fact. Onward to more practice and cross country!

Yes!


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Congratulations.
That grin lasts a couple weeks.
 
Congratulations!
 
Congrats!!! IMO the solo is the biggest accomplishment of any certificate or rating there is.

ATP, A320, C750, C680, C56XL, C550
CFI, MEI, AGI...

Solo still the most awesome memory!!!
 
That's friggin' awesome man, great job!
 
Congrats,I recognize the solo grin.
 
Kritchlow said:
Congrats!!! IMO the solo is the biggest accomplishment of any certificate or rating there is.

ATP, A320, C750, C680, C56XL, C550
CFI, MEI, AGI...

Solo still the most awesome memory!!!
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eh, mile high club is right up there as well, but I'm with ya....
 
Congrats, half way to some real fun. Big accomplishment, you can be proud of yourself. Next your PPL and then your own plane. Have you started to look for your new ride yet? :thumbsup:
 
Excellent... may I ask how many hours you're at? My friend is at 8.5. I did it at 13, curious about a data point.

I think technically you may brag about it for 1 week for every hour it took to get there :)
 
Thanks all. It's been a lot of fun talking about the flight yesterday. A lot of friends and colleagues are asking if we can go fly now... So I give them the break down of the PPL training. I have a long way to go folks, hang tight. Written is done, solo is kicked out - now to get serious.

I was at 11.7 hours. Anytime sooner I personally would not have been mentally prepared. Any later and I would have become anxious only because I knew it was coming sooner rather than later.


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rolivi said:
Excellent... may I ask how many hours you're at? My friend is at 8.5. I did it at 13, curious about a data point.

I think technically you may brag about it for 1 week for every hour it took to get there :)
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Seems like the number of hours before solo is like a di*k measuring contest around here. :rofl::rofl::rofl:

If so, I can celebrate my solo from last month for 112 weeks. :goofy:
 
Hey, congrats! I'm curious, I guess you did a lot of pattern work early on? I guess CFI's do things in different orders, maybe due to traffic flying out of class-D, or maybe i just suck. But I didn't get my first good pattern session till I was creeping up on 20 hours.

Or maybe you just picked it up so fast you just solo'd after 10 landings. (I probably had about 7 or 8 landings at 11 hours, if you count cfi assisted landings).
 
orange said:
Seems like the number of hours before solo is like a di*k measuring contest around here. :rofl::rofl::rofl:
Click to expand...

Heck, *any* topic can be turned into a d!ck measuring contest around here. Or in the case of 6PC, the topic just gravitates towards d!cks in general. :D
 
jimbilly said:
Hey, congrats! I'm curious, I guess you did a lot of pattern work early on? I guess CFI's do things in different orders, maybe due to traffic flying out of class-D, or maybe i just suck. But I didn't get my first good pattern session till I was creeping up on 20 hours.

Or maybe you just picked it up so fast you just solo'd after 10 landings. (I probably had about 7 or 8 landings at 11 hours, if you count cfi assisted landings).
Click to expand...

CFI's can teach in any order they want. I train at a very busy class D and I didn't get into pattern work until even later, I did a ton of maneuvers early on.
 
jimbilly said:
Or maybe you just picked it up so fast you just solo'd after 10 landings. (I probably had about 7 or 8 landings at 11 hours, if you count cfi assisted landings).
Click to expand...

Interesting. At 3.5 hours I had 11 landings and soloed at about 17-20 (can't remember exactly)
 
I had 45 landings / touch n go's / engine out procedures prior to solo. There has been a lot of pattern work on each return from the practice area and the last couple flights have been nearly exclusively pattern work. My airport is not busy so we get a lot of pattern work in a relatively short time frame. Regional airport is 6nm west so we have been heading over to Class C as well. It's been a good variation of training on each flight with a lot of pre/post flight discussion. My CFI is in no hurry, nor am I. I have a mountain to climb without a doubt.

What has helped a lot along the way was really working hard on the written exam and getting that knocked out early. Procedurally, I do a lot of flight simming and I think that helps a lot with airspace, communications and navigation. My setup is serious and the sim model I fly is almost spot on layout wise with the PA-28 I train in. The performance of the model is very accurate as well so after each real world flight I fly the same flight at night when I get home. It doesn't help much for the "feel" but hasn't hurt anything to this point.



 
I had a lot of 1.5+hour sessions with one landing per flight early on. I'm probably still not at 45 landings, should be close though. That is a serious sim setup! Nice.
 
Congrats! Study up, it will go quick from here.
 
I hear it will go faster from here but really just taking my time. I have 1.75 years to complete training before my written expires. My colleagues tell me if I don't wrap up by the end of summer then I have done it wrong. Ha. I guess a fall checkride is my real goal. My first step is to head out to the practice area.. I need to go soon while the confidence is high.
 
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