Lesson 59: Jonathan Livingston Jones

So I finally did it…I flew (and got cleared for) solo!

It was interesting.  Neither Mac nor I said anything at the hangar about my solo trial.  Mac simply asked me where I wanted to go.  I had been thinking Ramona for a long time, and so that’s what I said.

We took off, and flew to Ramona.  All the while with no explicit acknowledgment that this was the big day.

About five miles from Ramona I contacted the tower, and they told me to call back two miles out.  And I did.  The controller told me to make a left base entry, and I told Mac that at this point I felt as though this particular controller and I were friends.  Mac said yeah, it’s like that sometimes.

So I was about to make my left base entry when the controller told me to turn east and fall in behind another plane.  That certainly upset my apple cart a bit.  But I did it, and instead of a regular pattern entry, I ended up making a straight in approach. No problem there, but I did put the plane down with a small bit of a bump.  But it was a harbinger of things to come.

I could tell by Mac’s crossed arms that he wasn’t really happy, and sure enough, he wasn’t.  He mildly chided me about not having a proper roll out, and had me taxi back to do another landing.

Again, we had not explicitly talked about me being evaluated for solo, and I was thinking, “Sheesh, I hope this isn’t another day of take offs and landings.”

So we went around again, and did another landing.

After we cleared the runway, the controller asked us what we wanted to do. Mac got on the microphone and said, “Taxi back to 27, but first we’re going to drop the instructor off.”

This was it!

Halfway down the taxi way Mac got out, and I was on my own.

Mac no sooner got out than that particular controller — my friend — left and a strange woman got on the air.  Okay.  No problem.

So I did my first take off and landing without any particular issues.  Mac had told me that without the weight of an extra passenger the plane would take off much quicker, and he was righter than right.  I got the throttle all the way in, and was lifting off the runway before I knew it.  Climbed 500 feet…turned cross wind…climbed to 2,200 feet…turned downwind…leveled off at 2,400 feet…blah blah blah…and landed.  Whew!

And here is the photo of me landing an airplane all by myself for the first time:

First Solo Landing

Now, this is where it gets interesting.

I cleared the runway and started taxiing back.  Mac signaled me to continue on and do it again.  No problem.

I got to the end of the taxi way and called the tower:

“Skyhawk 622CM…holding short 27…left closed traffic…full stop, taxi back.”

“Cessna 622CM…left closed traffic…runway 27 cleared for take off.”

And down I went, and up I went.

There was a lot of chatter on the radio that I wasn’t paying particular attention to.  My bad (more about that later).  At about 300 feet, the controller said:

“Cessna 2CM, right closed traffic.”

“Say again,” I replied.

She was trying to deal with something else, and said, “Say again.”

“Skyhawk 622CM, say again.”

“Cessna 2CM, right closed traffic.”

That’s what I thought she said.  She was telling me to circle the airport in a clockwise manner rather than the usual counter-clockwise manner that I had requested.  OK, I figured this was just some instructor-controller thing that they pull on students to see if they can respond to new stuff.  I could certainly handle that.

So at 500 feet I banked right, and began a right pattern.

The thing about Ramona is that it doesn’t have a radar; the tower actually has to see you.  But in a right pattern, you almost fly over the tower, and there’s no way that the controller can see you.  So when I was mid-field, I called the tower:

“Skyhawk 622CM, abeam mid-field.”

“Cessna 2CM, do a left 360 degree turn.”

WTF !?!?!?!?!

Now I was pissed.  I was sure this was some pre-arranged game Mac had set up with the controllers.  On one level it didn’t make any sense; how could he have known where we were going, or who would be in the tower?  But I couldn’t come up with a rational explanation for it being any other way.

Nonetheless, I did a 360 degree left turn.  And when I finished I called in:

“2CM, finished 360.”

No answer.

A few seconds later I said, “2CM, I’m downwind.”

“Cessna 2CM, you’re going to follow [something] three miles out, blah blah blah…”

Apparently there was another plane making a straight in approach, and I was to follow it.  I had no clue what she was saying (in detail) and so I replied with something I knew couldn’t be faulted:

“2 CM, looking.”

Meaning, I was looking for whatever it was she was saying was ahead of me.

Eventually she told me that, although she couldn’t see me, the traffic ahead of me was practically landed and I should turn base and land.

And I did.

Once more Mac waved me on to do it again.  At this point I was understanding that this was not some game the controller-instructor were playing — that in fact, there was a lot of traffic at Ramona that day — and I was a bit calmer.  As I alluded to earlier, if I had been paying closer attention to the radio chatter, I could have gotten wind of it.  Oh well.

The third loop went OK (mentally), even though there was another small deviation to account for traffic.

And then it ended.  After the third landing the controller asked me what I wanted to do, and before I could answer Mac got on the air and said, “He’s going to pick up his instructor on the taxi way.”

When I got there and opened the door for him, he smiled and shook my hand.  I had passed the test!

Naturally Mac had had a small hand-held radio and had been listening to everything, so he knew exactly what had happened.  That was great, because it showed him I could function under a little bit of stress with some unplanned maneuvers.

Mac also knows how mentally trying a first solo is, and how particularly mentally trying mine had been.  So he took the controls and flew us all the way back to Montgomery while I sat back and reveled in my accomplishment.

Back at the hangar we had some discussion about what being cleared to solo means, and what my limitations are, and so on.  I won’t dwell on that now.

I told him — and he fully understood — that often it is more difficult to do something the second time than it was the first time, and that I wanted to go up immediately the next day and get that Second Time Boogie Man vanquished.  He was completely supportive of that and told me what I had to do to fly solo the next day.

And with that, I went home with a very big smile on my face, had a very nice dinner with Ellen, and slept a very sound sleep.