Wrong weather – forecast low
cloud base (low as in below my condo windowline low!)
Wrong winds – both direction and
strength (anything up to 22 knots later in the day)
Wrong plane – FJES is a lower
powered plane, I don’t like it very much, it feels sluggish.
Wrong runway – I hate 24 with a
passion. It’s hard to line up for, you come horribly close to the buildings and
it just feels all wrong.
And yet somehow I managed to pull it all off and manage a successful
first solo. Successful judged by the criteria that I got myself and the plane
back in one piece.
It just goes to show that the perfect flight was never going to
happen. I was convinced that mentally I needed everything to be right; I needed
to be 100% happy that I’d done three perfect circuits before I could even contemplate
that I would be ready to go solo. That
was never going to happen (I guess I’d be surprised if even a seasoned pilot
does everything perfectly). I set myself impossibly high standards sometimes
but occasionally I amaze myself by surpassing them!
No comments:
Post a Comment