Well I flew my first solo during my aviation flight training so now I could tell my friends that I flew the plane by myself even though I only stayed in the traffic pattern and did three take offs and landings and lost my shirt tail.
I was still going to ground school at night getting ready for the private written exam. My flight instructor failed to give me practical instruction in using navigation equipment so I was totally lost when it came to VOR and NDB. It was like learning Greek. The weight and balance questions were tough but I eventually came around and didn't have much of a problem. Same thing with weather, but I was a weather buff anyway. The easiest part for me were the FAR's and most anything that didn't require calculation and interpolation. The ground instructor was a really nice guy. He was a retired Navy jet pilot who flew all of his waking hours when he wasn't teaching ground school. You could tell because he smelled like a goat. It was summer and he would drive straight from the airport to the community college to teach ground school. He even took me for a spin in a Piper Cub once.
My post solo flight came around and I was required to fly to the practice area about twenty miles from the airport and practice maneuvers. This time I was scared. A lot more than on my first solo. I took off from the field and got about three quarters of the way to the practice area and chickened out. I started flying around in circles to kill time because my flight instructor was back at the airport waiting for me and he knew how long it should take.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to slam the flight instructor but knowing what I do now, he could have spent more time showing me the correct way to do basic flight maneuvers and using the VOR. All I knew how to really do was take off, climb, fly straight and level, descend and stall recovery which at that time I was afraid to try alone so I didn't do it. I flew around in circles until enough time elapsed that I could head back to the airport.
This was late spring and early summer and I was scared to death of getting caught in the rain. If I saw a cloud anywhere, I ran. I got back in the traffic pattern and was cleared to land. Everything went fine until I hit the runway. I failed to center the plane on the center line and I got caught in a crosswind. I was never taught crosswind correction and the plane blew off of the runway. I was in the grass. One thing that I could do right was work those rudder pedals, and my feet were moving trying to avoid hitting the runway lights. I was zig-zagging all over the grass. Luckily I didn't hit anything when I came to a stop in the grass next to the runway. Ground control asked if I was alright and instructed me to get back on the runway and go to the ramp. They didn't say anything else. I thought that I would have to file an incident report but I never heard back from them, so I nervously taxied back. I'm sure they got a good laugh out of it since no harm was done. I got back and didn't bother to tell the flight instructor about it. Screw him. He should have taught me how to land in a crosswind.
My next few solos went a little better and I was building some confidence. I even started doing stall recoveries alone. I also took my written exam. In those days you had to go to a scheduled exam day at the airport and wait six weeks for your results. My flight instructor left to fly a Lear Jet so I had to find a new one. Will tell you about that in my next post of Aviation Flight Training/ Personal Stories. Wilbe
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