Another early day today…well early for me anyways. I think I was at the club at around 7:30 or so. On my way there I started worrying that there wasn’t going to be an instructor with an early lesson to sign me out, but the worrying was for nothing, there were a couple of instructors there when I got there. I got Luc to sign me out.
Wind was such that runway 04 was in use this morning. I haven’t got nearly as much time taking off and landing on 04 as I do on 22 so that was good. It was also going to be the first time I had to navigate back to the airport backwards on my own. I say backwards, but that’s only because I’m more used to flying the other direction.
Anyways, it was quite a nice day today. A bit breezy up at 3000 feet but pretty damn smooth. I practiced slow flight and stalls again today since I haven’t chatted with Brad since my last solo. I’m getting to be an expert on slow flight. :)
Not much traffic in the practice area at all today. Only a couple of planes passing through. Just when I was getting ready to leave another plane came out but they were on the Quebec side and I had already moved over to the Ontario side by then.
Heading back in was a little different. As I mentioned above, I had to navigate back in on my own. I knew that I should come back in over BC, but I didn’t really know where to contact the terminal. I ended up calling them up and telling them I just left the practice area. They told me to contact the tower right away so I’m thinking I might have called them a bit late. Then when I called the tower I didn’t really know where to tell them I was so I just said that I was inbound. :) They didn’t seem to care, they had me on radar anyways so… I’ll have to ask Brad about that, I know going the other way I contact the terminal when we’re above the quary, then contact the tower when we’re above the bridge.
There were a few people in the circuit as I was approaching. I ended up getting slotted in behind a Katana. I felt I was a bit close so I turned out to the right and then back to the left to give them some room. I was going to do a 360 but thought that might take too much time. Anyways, as it stood, I set myself for a fairly long final. Wind was pretty much down the pipe and my landing was ok. Not bad but not picture perfect either.
Oh yeah, I nearly forgot to mention…I did something really bad today! Somehow I managed to forget to turn the master switch off in the plane before I got out. Someone else noticed and radioed the club. I really have no idea how I did that…but needless to say it was embarassing enough that I don’t think I’ll make that mistake again!
If the weather holds, I’ll be doing a flight with Brad tomorrow after work, then I’ve got a couple of more solo flights booked for Thursday and Friday.
Somehow I managed to forget to turn the master switch off in the plane before I got out.
That’s why they always leave the BEACON on, so that if you leave the master on you can see the beacon flashing from inside the club. It’s not a big deal, just hard on the battery. So, as a tip, I always look at the tail of the plane as I’m heading back in to make sure that everything’s turned off.
Of course if I just made sure to actually do everything on the checklist then I wouldn’t have had the problem either.