Flight 15, N14008, 1.3 hours (22.7 total), landings, first solo

Depending on how the weather was, today could be the day of my first solo. The first thing I did after getting up was checking the weather. PAO had few clouds at 12,000 feet, visibility of 20 miles, and wind variable at 3. Certainly looked like a great day for flying. My only concern was with the wind direction. Nearby HWD showed wind direction at 130, which meant PAO would probably be using runway 13 instead the more familiar 31. But that's OK. I'd made plenty of landings at runway 13. The plus side is that I'd be making left pattern. Left turns always seem a bit easier than right turns.

I came to the airport and indeed runway 13 was in use. Mark came just as I finished pre-flight. He filled in the endorsement section in my logbook for soloing, leaving the signature part out. So if he thought I was good to go after a couple of landings we wouldn't waste any time in the plane. He just needed to sign it in the plane and I'd be good to go. Of course it'd still depend on how well I perform today, we'd know soon.

We quickly taxied out. It was the earliest ever, since there's not much to talk about in today's plan. In my first landing I came in too high, and Mark asked me to do a go-around. Not that the landing couldn't be saved, but he'd like me to do a go-around before soloing, just in case I needed to do it when soloing. The second landing was fine. Marked made some comments about using the rudders more to line up better before touching down. There was a bit of crosswind going. There was a helicopter in the pattern. The pilot was apparently a student, too, and was quite slow in his work. During a couple of landings I was behind him and had to extend my downwind a bit to make room for him. And in one landing behind him the tower called me to go-around because he didn't move out of the way fast enough. Anyway, one student pilot can certainly forgive another for being slow :) My pattern work wasn't as good as I would like today. I was probably nervous/excited about the coming solo. I wasn't maintaining altitude very well on downwind, and once turned to downwind at 900 feet: 100 feet higher than I should be. That'd be enough to fail my check ride if this was it :P My turns were also a bit too steep: usually at 30 degrees than the more comfortable 20. None of those was a security hazard, though :P In my last couple landing Marked focused on me using the rudder to line up with the runway before touching down, as there's a slight crosswind from the left. Then after the 5th landing he asked me to taxi to the end of the runway and said "I'm ready to cut you loose.". Yay!

I dropped Mark off at taxiway J. He just took his handheld radio and video camera, and left his headset in the plane "as a vote of confidence" :D. Ha, I could feel the lady at the control tower becoming nicer instantly :) She was speaking slowly to me, and cleared me to take off before another plane that was in the run up area. The takeoff roll was smooth and uneventful. I had a huge grin on my face as I accelerated down the runway. As I pulled on the yoke to rotate I peeked at the clock: 10:14:15. I was airborne! Flying as pilot in command for the first time! I have to say I was quite calm :) I was even looking out of the window and thinking if my engine quit then, which patch of the bog I'd have to land in :) I flew a better pattern than any of the practice rounds and soon came to final, and found myself a bit high. Well, it's always better to be higher than lower :P Soon I passed the runway threshold and still a tad high, but I was confident I could land it. Flare came a bit late and the plane bounced. go-around? No, I was pretty sure I could save it. I pulled back a little bit, the plane bounced a second time then touched down. All right, I was safe on the ground. My first landing as pilot in command :). I told tower I'm taxing back to do it again. As I passed Mark who was standing by the taxi way, he made some hand gestures to me, which I just couldn't get. He finally got on the radio (the shared frequency that the tower and all pilots use), and said "Jianing, flaps up". Oops, I forgot to put the flaps up after landing, guess I was too excited to have made it down safely :P "Thanks Mark".

For my second takeoff I think I made a mistake. The plane before me aborted his takeoff because of birds. There was a goose on the runway as I took it and I just accelerated past it. It would probably have been better judgement if I aborted the takeoff just as the previous guy did. But the goose didn't cause any real trouble. My second landing was better than the first one. There was still one slight bounce but I think the timing was improving. This time I did remember to raise the flaps after landing :)

Before my 3rd takeoff tower asked me to wait while they sent a truck going up and down the runway to drive away the birds. My 3rd landing was the best of the day. Flaring was just at the right time and the plane floated over the runway for a bit then gently touched down, no bouncing at all :)

I told tower I was terminating, then contacted ground and picked up Mark. He said he only got a good shot of my first landing (the worst one!). Oh well, it'd be good learning material I suppose. :)

I taxied off the runway at 10:32, so the total time I spent alone in the plane was probably about 20 minutes. Short flight, but I'm sure there's many many more to come :)

update: Mark sent me this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VArmcN9CWTc. So the first landing was 3 bounces rather than 2 :P the 2nd one doesn't look too bad actually. It sure felt worse in the plane than it looks from the ground. Too bad the 3rd one isn't in there, it must be a beauty to watch :P. Another interesting thing: I wasn't even listening to the lady at tower for the wind information while flying (and even if I was, I wouldn't have the presence of mind to do the math anyway), but from the video, the wind was from 60 at 8 kts. For runway 13 that's a cross wind of slightly stronger than 5 kts, which is higher than the cross wind limit I was endorsed for :P Well, the overage was only after the decimal point so it didn't count I guess :)