Lesson 43 - Tuesday July 27th

Solo Solo

Last Friday I had a ground lesson, where Craig showed me how to plan a cross country journey.  He had me pick a spot on the map, which ended up being MIT, (Shafter Minter), just north of Bakersfield, about 100 nm away.

So now this morning I was running around trying to get my navigation plan in order, which is not particularly complex.  I was having problems with the E6B flight computer, which seemed to have some incorrect labeling.  I also discovered that my plotter (a plastic rule), has statute miles on one side and nautical miles on the other, some that Craig had not noticed, so the example computations we did the day before had the wrong numbers, confusing me even more.

Anyway, I get the weather briefing, get all the calculations done, and head to Justice, and when I arrive Craig had a scheduling conflict, so instead of flying to Bakersfield, he sent me out to fly solo in the pattern!

Well, that was a bit unexpected, but I managed okay.  Pretty much a repeat of my fist solo, except this time I got to do everything.  I even had to clear a mag (clearing the spark plugs on one magneto by running the engine at high RPM for a while with the mixture lean).

The landings were pretty much the same as before.  All quite good enough, some more and less good than others.

I did six, then called it a day, as it was getting rather hot.