WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

hah… yeah, my first solo went extremely well :-)

Brian and I took off about 11:30 this morning and did one touch-and-go and one full stop landing. He hopped out and I called ground to get taxi instructions. I taxied to runway 21R, called tower, and waited for takeoff permissions.

The first thing I noticed when I was in the plane by myself was the weight difference. I had heard from many other articles that you notice the plane is much easier to hand and everything, but feeling it is completely different. The plane while taxiing was so light and moved very well.

I took off and was in the air, by myself… I made a right turn to the crosswind following the Ohio River and then made a right turn to downwind. I leveled off at 1500 feet and set flaps to 10 degrees when at mid-runway. When abeam to the numbers I incremented the flaps. Turning on base I called tower and reported… was cleared for landing on 21R. I turned onto approach and descended to touchdown…. FIRST SOLO LANDING… haha… I was excited… It’s a good thing I have to push the button to call tower and they couldn’t hear me cause I was sure cheering myself on :-D

I did the pattern about 6 times and finally brought it in for to park.

At Lunken today they were having a air race… so there were lots of other airplanes around that were from all over the country. As I landed they were all taxiing to their respective runways. The race is something where you estimate your time and whoever is closest to their estimated time wins… or something like that, I wasn’t completely sure how it was working. So when taxiing back to the terminal I slowed to let all the super fast looking props planes taxi by… it was pretty exciting.

Once back, Brian met me out at the airplane and congratulated me with a handshake. We got a few pictures taken in front of the plane, which I will post once they are sent my way. The office folks, Sharon and Captain Dave were also there to congratulate me. I got a certificate which I will have to get a nice frame for.

So Brian is leaving, off to the airlines, I am very glad I got to do my first solo while he was around… very exciting. I’ll meet a new instructor probably sometime next week and continue with lessons.

Yay for me! Time to go celebrate!

Later!!