{"id":1738,"date":"2011-01-22T04:00:19","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T09:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2011-01-22T04:00:19","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T09:00:19","slug":"solo-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/?p=1738","title":{"rendered":"Solo! (Part 4)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the final installment of the story of soloing, originally published in Eagles Tales<\/a>,<\/em> a collection of essays by my colleagues in the Aeronautical Science Department of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Eagle Tales <\/em>is available for sale at 20 percent off with the coupon code ET2011 on checkout through the BluewaterPress website<\/a>. A portion of each sale goes toward the Jim Lewis Memorial Scholarship fund in the Aeronautical Science Department.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

It almost seemed normal, to be flying alone.\u00a0 I arrived abeam the landing area and pulled on the carburetor heat, throttled the engine to idle, and allowed the airplane to slow to 55.\u00a0 It was the same as all the times before when Charlie was sitting in the airplane.\u00a0 There was no difference!\u00a0 It was just another landing.<\/p>\n

I looked down, flew a little beyond the cypress dome at the end of the runway, and turned base.\u00a0 Using the stick, I kept the airspeed pegged on 55 as I watched the runway.\u00a0 I was going to play the turn to final just right\u2013I wanted the airplane to end up on the final approach course right on the extended centerline.<\/p>\n

As I turned final, I could see Charlie at the far end of the runway and I looked at the sky.\u00a0 I thought of the significance of the moment one more time and thought of what I had to do to finish with a safe landing.<\/p>\n

The end of the runway came up and I could see the fence line.\u00a0 As the fence passed underneath the wheels of the Cub, I eased the stick back and began the flare.\u00a0 As the airplane slowed down, I kept it from landing by adding more and more backpressure.\u00a0 At first, she wanted to climb, undoubtedly the difference between flying the airplane with Charlie in it as opposed to alone.\u00a0 I kept the airplane tracking down the runway and as the stick reached the full back position, I felt the wing sigh and enter the stall.\u00a0 Suddenly, the weight of the airplane left the wing and transferred to the wheels and we were rolling.<\/p>\n

My solo was over.<\/p>\n

I was thrilled!\u00a0 I was laughing, I was grinning, and I was happy!\u00a0 Even though many of my peers had soloed in nine hours or less, I was happy with nine and?a?half.\u00a0 At least I was not one of those horror stories I had heard of in which students never seemed to get ready!\u00a0 It was going to be later in my life after I was a flight instructor myself, that I was to realize this was no race; a student pilot soloed when he or she was ready.\u00a0 Not a moment before.\u00a0 Not a moment later.\u00a0 There was no race, no winners, and certainly no losers in this thing called learning to fly.<\/p>\n

The airplane slowed to a taxi and I looked up ahead at Charlie.\u00a0 He had already turned his back and was walking toward the hangar\/shed\/office\/bar.\u00a0 He was done with me for the day and it was late.\u00a0 Time for a drink of his Kentucky bourbon.\u00a0 I saw him wave me in.<\/p>\n

As I taxied toward the shed, I still could not get over the fact that I was up in an airplane all by myself!\u00a0 Yesterday was my mother\u2019s birthday.\u00a0 I felt as though she was not going to be pleased with this birthday present.\u00a0 Later, I would always remember my mother\u2019s birthday as the day before my solo, rather than my solo being the day after her birthday.<\/p>\n

I taxied up to the shed where Charlie was standing.\u00a0 He was the only one around.\u00a0 The others had left.\u00a0 The little Continental ticked over evenly at 500 rpm and after I stopped the airplane, I sat for a moment.\u00a0 Then I raised my hand and cut the mag switch to off.\u00a0 The engine whirled to a stop and the cylinders began making tinkling and crackling noises as the engine cooled down.\u00a0 It was very quiet and Charlie said something about congratulations and it was time for his drink now that he was done flying and oh yea, let\u2019s take care of your log.<\/p>\n

The old man took my flight log and carefully scribed the words, \u201cFirst supervised solo\u2013OK.\u201d\u00a0 Then he logged 25 minutes of dual time and 5 minutes of solo time.<\/p>\n

I looked at the log entry and for the first time, felt as though I was really on my way to becoming a pilot.\u00a0 As with all pilots, this was a big event in my life, one I was sure I would remember for the rest of my life.\u00a0 And I could tell that for Charlie, it was just another student solo.\u00a0 I wondered how many times with other students he had made the same entry into their logs.<\/p>\n

On the drive home, the sun finished setting.\u00a0 It was glorious and beautiful.\u00a0 Then it got dark.\u00a0 Often, I think about that flight.<\/p>\n

Now, after all these years, I also have other thoughts about my solo and of other student\u2019s solo flights.\u00a0 That thought is pretty predictable\u2013one voiced many times by others.\u00a0 It is not truly accurate in the flying business\u2013 really, not everyone can fly.\u00a0 But I have to think there is a ring of truth to that old clich\u00e9 . . . \u00a0<\/p>\n

If I can do this, anyone can!<\/p>\n

-30-<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2010 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the final installment of the story of soloing, originally published in Eagles Tales, a collection of essays by my colleagues in the Aeronautical Science Department of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Eagle Tales is available for sale at 20 percent … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,6,8,9],"tags":[329,839,1157,1279,1422,1456,1468,1950,2055,2155,2795,3396,3439,4023],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-flight-instructing","category-flying-2","category-life-in-general","category-personal","tag-airplanes","tag-cessnas","tag-discipline","tag-engine-failures","tag-first-solo","tag-florida","tag-flying","tag-inexperienced-pilots","tag-judgment","tag-learning-to-fly","tag-pilots","tag-student-pilots","tag-taildraggers","tag-training-aircraft"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}