Flight Training For Cross Country

My last article brought me up to my first dual cross country flight. Five days later I flew my second dual cross country, this time from Tulsa to Stillwater, a little bit of a shorter distance. On the way there my flight instructor taught me diversion and we rehashed some lost procedures. I was getting ready to fly my first solo cross country and was feeling pretty good about it. I needed to get it done as soon as possible. This flight school had a bad habit of cancelling scheduled flights because of maintenance problems with the aircraft, thus throwing off a students momentum to keep going and retain newly learned skills. I didn't want that to happen to me. Regardless of that, I still didn't get to fly my first solo cross country until six days after my last dual.
I was going to fly to MLC and back again, but this time I will be doing it alone. I was nervous as you might guess. I knew the route pretty well after flying there dual fifteen days earlier and basically knew that all I had to do was to follow highway 75 and it would take me straight there. I plotted out a course anyway because I wanted to, and mainly because I was required to anyway. I used different check points this time.
The flight went off without a hitch and it only took me .4 hours more time than my dual. I was pumped. My second cross country solo was the next day and I was on a roll. I did a repeat of my second dual going to SWO alone this time and it took .3 hours longer than with my instructor. I didn't fly again until November 6th, exactly two weeks after my second solo cross country.
These delays were getting tedious and I was beginning to complain. I admit that a lot of the time weather was a problem, this being Oklahoma. You just can't allow a student pilot to fly in certain conditions but I was also having aircraft taken away from me by students who were higher up the ladder and of course maintenance problems. On November 6th I flew a dual with my instructor. All we did was practice diversion.
One week later I flew my third solo cross country. I was to fly from Tulsa to Ponca City to Ardmore and back to Tulsa. Luckily I didn't lose any enthusiasm from the delays because that was the funnest time that I have had in a long time. I really enjoyed the trip from PNC to ADM. I got to see a lot of the state from the air. The whole trip took me 4.9 hours. On the way back from Ardmore to Tulsa, a thunderstorm started creeping up on me and I got really nervous. Nothing happened but it was a scary sight and I made it back without getting wet.
Well I got my cross countries out of the way with about forty hours of total time. I still needed to do some night flying and practice maneuvers to get ready for my private check ride.