First Solo and Beyond...

My 1st ever solo happened some 9 years ago, when I did my Gliding Scholarship with 625 Volunteer Gliding Squadron at Hullavington, nr Chippenham, which for those who don't know is halfway between London and the land of Scrumpy. Back then it was an amazing experience, but also a little scary.

Last week, I did another first solo - this time in a powered aircraft. My primary instructor is still relatively new, and is not allowed to send first solos just yet, so I was programmed in to fly with the Deputy Chief Instructor out here in NZ. We went off to the east of Hamilton to practice some stall recoveries first, as I was out of currency for them. After having completed these exercises, we diverted to a small grass airfield called Matamata, where I demonstrated various circuits including one simulating flap failure, and one with power off.

We landed off of the third circuit and the checking instructor informed me that he would be jumping out and sending me off on my own to fly a single circuit to land, pick him up, and then head back to Hamilton. The lifting off the runway with just myself on board was certainly a good moment, made even more special in some ways that it was being done from a small grass strip airfield in the middle of nowhere. Very Kiwi...

The days after this were spent doing a couple more dual-solo flights. Basically, you do the first half of the flight with an instructor, they then jump out and you do the other half solo. These were also a lot of fun, bashing out circuit after circuit at Hamilton, trying to make them all as accurate as possible.

Then on Sunday came my first solo without any check before. The hour spent in the aircraft that day was about as much fun as I can ever remember having in the sky. Particularly as there were two of my course mates solo in the circuit at the same time. By next week, hopefully I should be cleared solo out of the circuit, meaning I'll be allowed to go out into the training area by myself. Should be good fun, can't wait....