No escape

Phenomenal lesson today, no other word to describe it! So much learned and gained. After having spent all week driving my co-workers crazy about the chance of some solo flying this week, I finally got the opportunity to.

I haven’t soloed since the end of October and it’s become a bit of an issue for me to be honest. I’d only ever done single circuits when soloing and as I’ve mentioned before, I got myself into a bit of a “any idiot can manage it once” mindset when it came to the inevitable time that Bob would require me to fling it round more than once. I didn’t think I could do it. As I was explaining this at work , E looked at me in semi-disgust and said “ are you psyching yourself out again? Get up there and fly the plane. I know you can do it, Bob knows you can do it. YOU know you can do it.” I get such sympathy from my friends!*

The problem was, I knew I needed to do some solo work but the weather had failed to cooperate for a long time now.  At the start of this week the weather and the winds were looking really promising. I both looked forward to and dreaded the fact that I’d probably be going solo. Then Friday hit and the winds looked screwy. From the North, which meant R33. I’ve never done circuits on 33. The runway itself is problematic in that you end up crossing the active runway that the commercial traffic is using. It’s just messy. By Friday afternoon I’d convinced myself that no solo this time.

And then Bob texted with his cunning plan. The winds were due to change in the afternoon. So he had the bright idea of going down in the morning for our usual time, seeing what the wind was doing. Solo if able. If not we’d do our usual stuff in the practice area and then book me in for another flight in the afternoon!  No escape for me! One way or another I was going to solo.

And I did! More later. Torn between exhilarated and exhausted at the moment.

 

* She did have the good grace to say “OMG now I feel guilty, what if you crash and die? It’ll all be my fault!”