Cinderella Solo

corey    Flying    

It was Wednesday morning, around 6:30am that I headed over to Jeffco. For some reason, whenever I get up early in the morning I tend to have a stomach ache that never really does anything other than be annoying – it was a little bit worse than normal that morning. Nerves? Probably.

Heck, I’ve solo’ed before. Why was I nervous?

We headed up to Vance Brand where my solo was to take place, and after a minor snaffu (had to convince the two folks already in the pattern to switch runways since the wind was coming out of the east) did 2 touch-n-goes and a full stop. We parked N52243 and went into the local FBO for a quick bathroom break, where the nice lady behind the counter wished me good luck once she learned I was suppose to go on my solo.

After a quick coaching by my instructor (“you’ll do fine! really!”) I started my checklist to start her up. Hmm, first snag already! Since we had gotten the engine hot on the way up to Longmont the engine is a bit more sensitive to starting. At first I didn’t prime it and just tried a normal start – no go. Well, I thought, maybe it’s actually still a little cold so I gave it a quick shot of gas with the fuel pump. Darn it, still wouldn’t crank over. After waving Tim over he told me how to do the flooded start, so I tried that: vroom! There we go.

And after that it was uneventful. I taxied out to runway 11, did my runup, checked the traffic, waited for the guy on base to do his touch-n-go, made my radio call and away I went! Three full stop landings. The first two were a little high but I was able to get it down within 50ft (I think) and make OK landings. The first being a little flat, the rest not too bad (bounced a little on the second one, but just a little).

And then we headed back to Jeffco for a landing into a crosswind that was more annoying than it should have been. Time to start practicing more of those!

Oh, the Cinderella part of this post… Cheryl and I saw Cinderella Man last Friday and it was really good! The fight scenes were very tense, and overall the movie had pretty good pacing (at least, I thought). I certainly recommend the movie, though it might be a little rough on the faint-of-heart.

Wish me luck on my follow-up solo, hopefully Sunday!

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