I think I p!ssed off ATC

I soloed and it wasn’t without incident. Nothing dangerous or massively scary but not exactly according to plan either.

The original plan was for three circuits. In Bob’s words “just keep on doing what you’ve been doing.”

I took off, turned crosswind when prompted and tried hard to keep parallel to the runway. There was a lot of traffic around, tons of radio chatter. One guy covering both tower and ground and there was a lot of movement on both.

I turned base, couldn’t get a call in because of the traffic. I powered back and dropped the requisite 10 degrees of flaps. Then ATC deigned to remember me

“Juliet Echo Sierra , maintain downwind, I’ll call your base”

Hmmmm,

“I’m already on base, confirm you want me to return to downwind”

“affirmative”

Ooooooookaaaay. So I’ll turn back to a downwind heading, maybe clean up the flaps and return to cruise power. Humber bay looks kinda pretty from up here. Don’t normally get to see it. Maybe gain a little height I’m a bit far out over the water.

Eventually I turn base. I’m on a two and a half mile final. Looooong. Set up for a nice stable approach though. Speeds good, hold off on the flaps a bit and we should be good.

Wow this is a really long final, why is this taking sooooo long? OK, keep your focus, maintain that centre line.

“Juliet Echo Sierra, pull up and go around, make a right turn”

Power in, clean up the flaps. Did I do something wrong?

No time to worry about that now. Fly the plane. Hold your course. Watch your altitude and go round for another bash at it.

Eventually I get to turn base again, set up for a nice approach. Speed is perfect. Time to evaluate my surroundings. Its 10:50, the next student has the plane from 11:00

“City Tower, making this one a full stop, Juliet Echo Sierra”

I land, pretty sweet one, mains first then the nose. Remember not to exit onto 33 unless told to. He’s on the radio, no chance of that early exit.

Come off at Foxtrot, taxi her back in, shut it down. Bob appears in the window. Open the door.

“So how’d it go?”

“I think I p!ssed off ATC!!!”

Turns out I didn’t really. I was a bit slow on final because of the headwinds. The spacing didn’t work out and they had to overshoot me because the Porter couldn’t dial it back anymore. Maybe a more experienced pilot would have kept the speed up on final, but I did what I was comfortable with. I was safe if just a little inexperienced.

No harm, no foul. I really don't want to upset those guys if I can help it.