It was a hot day above 30'C. My flight was scheduled in mid-day at 1400hrs. There were no clouds and winds were blowing at speeds of above 10kts. My flight was to be my third solo and this time round I will fly one more round than the previous solo flight.
Up I went for my solo check with my instructor and conditions were the tough like heck! I was thrown about badly by turbulence, I was having trouble maintaining my altitude and I had to fight it to get my direction correct. It was seriously terrible. My height was so screwed up that my base and finals were also not to correct profile.
The finals was terribly bumpy and at a time I even bust the airspeed limit for flaps extended. Some of my final approaches were way too flat too. The only saving grace were my safe landings. I thought I was going to fail my check but to my surprise, my instructor was confident enough to let me go solo. Before he hopped off the aircraft, he said "no matter what, BE SAFE".
I imprinted those two words in my mind and went into the skies again on my own. With the pressure off, I seemed to be flying better. The lesser weight made me float longer on the runway during landing made worse by the rising heat on the hot tarmac. I took longer than usual to land the plane properly. On one occasion, I ballooned a little but manged to salvage it by adding in a wee bit of power and restart the flaring.
All was good and I did four rounds of circuit, came back safely with the plane and completed my third solo flight. Instructor was happy and so was I. This was by far the toughest condition I was subjected to during my solo flight.
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| My shadow watches on as it stayed grounded due to strong crosswind |
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| Missing the feeling of being on the tarmac |
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| Spent the first day of CNY burning calories |
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| CNY Day 2 dinner!! |
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| Flies, why you do this infront of me |
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| Ending the week with a glass of milk, my laptop and the TV |
And that's it. After a whirlwind of three solo flights in five days, I didn't get to fly again for the next six days due to bad winds and high temperatures. Tough luck, hoping for a better week ahead. Happy Lunar New Year to all Chinese out there!
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