My (Second) First Solo!

Well, today was the day. The wind was about 20 degress left of runway 18 at about 7-10 kts., and I didn't scare Rocky too bad with my first two landings, so he let me take the thing around by myself a couple of times.

Taxiing back out, I had to wait for what seemed like forever behind my flight school's Cutlass (a 172 with retractable landing gear), who had to wait forever for a couple of planes landing on instrument approaches. I took off right behind him and got through my first landing pretty smoothly.

With my confidence up from one good landing, I was headed downwind for another when I noticed an awful lot of traffic on the radio. The controller asked me to do a 360 to the right for spacing. I was almost through the first one when he said he'd need at least two or three more from me. I think I ended up doing about 5 full circles out over the bay before I got the go-ahead to land again. It was fine, though, and I appreciated some time to practice making smooth coordinated level turns.

The second landing was fine. Coming downwind for the last one, the controller asked me to turn base immediately and make a short final approach because my school's other 172 was coming right in to land behind me. I easily obliged and brought her right around for a landing. He told me to keep my speed up on the runway until I got to the taxiway, and as I turned off I looked over my shoulder and saw that the other 172 was already on the runway behind me. We landed just like the Blue Angels!

Even though I soloed three times in high school, it felt like pretty much the first time. I suppose it helped me to know I'd done it before, but I basically started all over again learning to fly in this program. But I think it's really, really sticking this time around. I was definitely back in my groove today, and it felt really good.