2nd Solo

This day was picture perfect for an early summer flight. The wind was calm, the sky was clear and I had no other obligations to attend to. I made my way to the airplane parked on the flight line and began my preflight inspection. I had already done this once today but in keeping with consistency I did a good inspection anyway. With everything ready on the outside of the plane I climbed in closed the door and began my checklist for starting up the plane. Then it occurred to me that today I am flying by myself and I will be doing maneuvers that I have practiced so many times, but now all one my own. The nervousness starts to build as I check and then recheck the all of the pre-start procedures. Trim set for take off, fuel on both tanks, throttle open slightly, mixture set to rich, carb heat cold, all breakers normal, beacon light on, master switch on, avionics master off, primer set and locked, feet on the brakes, I yell "clear prop" and hit the starter. As the motor comes to life I again think about all the things I am now doing alone and how safe I felt with my instructor in the right seat, until now.

I begin to taxi being extra careful to watch the distance between me and the parked planes and I moving around. Clear to the left, and clear to the right I make my way onto the taxi-way along the runway. I am now listening to the radio traffic to get a feel for who else my be in the pattern and possibly landing when I am hoping to take off. The tower is not in service yet so every pilot must announce where they are and what their intentions are just as I am doing. This system works very well since no one wants and accident to happen. I arrive at the last point on the taxi-way where I begin the pre take off checklist. I have done this many times at this point but this one seems to be the most memorable, now that I am pilot in command and there is no back up. Checklist completed I proceed towards the runway, turn the plane to the right for one last visual check of the traffic pattern to make sure no one is on base or final without their position announcing on the radio. All clear, I roll onto the runway and push the throttle all the way in. As I gain speed I run the next checklist, tach producing power, pressure and temperature in the green, airspeed increasing, and in what seems a few seconds I reach 62 knots and the plane begin to lift off on it's own. No turning back, I am now in the air for my second solo flight.

I follow the routine of climbing and turning in the pattern until I reach the designated altitude of 6,500 feet MSL. Once I make it to midfield I start heading to the south east to the practice area about 15 miles away. I am careful to stay at 6,500 until I reach the town of Bennett because any higher than that the Air Traffic Controllers at DIA will be upset the entered their airspace without clearance. With the practice area approaching I start climbing again to the safe altitude of 1500 feet above the ground (AGL) or 7,000 feet and start planning for my first maneuvers. That nervous feeling hits me again as I realize that I am about to force the airplane to do things that seem a little nuts without my trusty instructor beside me to bail me out if something goes wrong. I do some clearing turns to check for traffic, and then get set up for steep turns. The steep turns went pretty well, so now I am ready for some slow flight. The slow flight went well so now lets see if I can do S-turns. I locate the wind get positioned and the S-turns feel right, not drifting too much, compensating well for the wind, hey this is going well so far. Now it is time for stalls, the maneuver I hate the most.

I get the plane configured to simulate landing, flaps at 30 degrees, carb heat warm, power back to idle, and start pulling back on the yoke. It is so unnatural to intentionally make the plane stop flying and lose all lift but I must do it, and do it well for my test. The plane sort-of stalls but not fully, so I recover and get set up for another one, one that would make an examiner happy. Again pulling back on the yoke the sky is all I see, the plane slows down, and the stall horn starts to whine. Then it happens, the point where the plane buffets and the nose drops rapidly (so does my stomach), I hit the throttle, push the yoke forward, start buiding speed, level out, set the carb heat to cold, and begin retracting the flaps 10 degrees at a time. There it is, my most hated maneuver is complete and I know, it's time to go back to the airport and call it day.

Within 10 miles of the airport I start my procedures for landing. I tune the radio to the ASOS and get the weather to make sure I know what the wind is doing and my altimeter is set right. I make my radio calls to let everyone know where I am and what I am going to do. The wind has shifted so I elect to land the opposite direction on the runway because I have not learned how to do a tailwind landing and today is not the day for that. Another pilot announces he is taking off on runway 26, but I have just announced I am landing on runway 8, which the same runway just a different direction. Did he not hear me? This is head on collision about to happen so I start planning for a go around in case this guy decides to take off anyway. Then the pilot who is following me gets on the radio and makes sure the one the ground knows that the active runway is 8 and there are 4 planes about to land that direction. I am still high enough to see that the guy on ground is turning around, and with my confidence restored I proceed with my landing. The landing is not going well so I opt for a go-around anyway just to be safe and get some practice on that maneuver as well. The next attempt is right on the money and once off the runway I go about parking the plane.

As I sit back and review the day, I realize that I was up there for an hour and It seemed like only 30 minutes. I completed another big milestone on my way to private pilot. I feel a little wiser, more confident, and satisfied with my progress. What a fantastic way to spend a saturday morning.