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Jerry's 57th Lesson: SOLO!This log is starting a bit early. Insomnia is the curse of a nervous disposition, and SOLO is tomorrow. I wish he could have surprised me with it, but after 75 hours, that would have been hard. It's now 0220 local time, and here I am sitting at the computer. And last night I only got four hours of sleep. No problem though: actually got to sleep at 2230 tonight - woke up at 0130 - had to get to sleep again. Stumbled out back to the computer; read rec.aviation.student for a while; answered some mail; went back to bed around 0300. Got up this morning at 0730. Now for the judgment call... Did I get enough sleep? You bet! Threw my stuff into the car, raced on down to SJC. Let myself in with my new gate pass, met my instructor out at the airplane. The plan was to do a few circuits dual, terminate and go park at the Jet Center, do the paperwork there. Then I would go back out, do a preflight, get the ATIS, do a runup, and be on my way! When we got to the runup area, a couple of folks strolled across the tarmac, waved, and took our picture. It was none other than our own Gene Whitt, who had flown down from Concord to see me "sprout wings" as he put it. I took the headset off, waved, and fumbled around trying to get the headset back on. We did our runup, and set off to the active. When we got there, the tower made us wait three minutes - "Departing 737, wake turbulence". Then when we got onto the runway, they made us get back off again! A Cherokee had taken its time getting off the runway - going all the way to the *last* taxiway, and there was a Bonanaza coming in on short final. He took the plane, did a *quick* 180, and got us back behind the hold short line. Finally we took off. First time around, I did just about the worst landing I can remember in the last 20 hours. Flared too late, hit the mains, bounced wayyyy up, reflared and three-pointed it. The rest of the landings were, thank goodness, better. On the third time round, my instructor said "Go around!" - it was one of his presolo requirements. So I applied full power, notched down the flaps... did the whole go-round procedure. No problem. Good thing too, as you'll read later. We came down one more time, terminated ( I weaved the airplane a bit when I tried to brake ), parked the airplane, and he handed me the keys (!). We went into the jet center to do our paperwork. We sat around discussing endorsements and scribbling in the logbook, when my old instructor walked by! There was a uncomfortable moment, then I called out "Hi Heath!". Surprise surprise :-). He doesn't normally even fly out of that airport. It was not to be the last surprise of the day.... Then Gene Whitt walked in and introduced himself, and we chatted a bit. He allowed as to how doing umpteen lessons at Hayward had probably been a bad idea - "Like learning to drive by driving around the block." He had a new hat, given to him by a "retread student" whom he'd taught to fly some 25 years previous. Gene remarked "You know, on that first landing, you had a 4-knot tail wind. Those'll fool you." We finished up the paperwork, I walked out to the airplane. Did a complete preflight, sat in the plane, started up the engine. "Clear!" Familiar procedures have a marvellous calming effect on the soul. Can I do this? I got ATIS, called up Ground, asked to go to the 29 runup area - "for my first solo". Got immediate clearance to do so. I pulled out of the Jet Center, turned left....Hmm, that doesn't look like a runup area... What's going on? I called Ground again. They told me where to go, I went there. One thing about taildraggers, you can do the *sharpest* 180s:-). I told the tower it was my first solo too, for good measure. They came back: "Cessna ONE - EIGHT --- EIGHT --- TWO --- VICTOR Clear for takeoff" They also gave me a squawk codqe. ( Damn, I just remembered, I forgot to reset the transponder to 1200 ) I took off. Wind was three or four knots straight across the runway. It's true what they say: the plane climbs faster without the instructor. I was at pattern altitude just as I turned downwind! There I was on downwind, everything just clicking - I had the traffic, I had my clearance... Great! What people never seem to mention in these solo posts is that the airplanes also *descend slower*. I was somewhat high, so cranked in full flaps on base, pulled the power down to idle, and came right down. That first landing was OK, maybe a little high on the flare. And, Oops, I weaved a bit on takeoff. Things got interesting on the second circuit. The flaps died. Yes, Virginia, the ratchet wouldn't catch! One notch worked, but nothing more than that. I pulled the lever up, it just fell back down! Gaak! There I was on base, high again, and no flaps. About halfway down on final, I figured out that this just wasn't going to work out, and executed a go-around. Coming back around on downwind, I figured "OK, I'll just do a no-flaps landing. I've already done 400 of them in the C120, it should be no problem". The tower called me, and told me to extend my downwind. "All right!", I thought, "That's just what I needed anyway!". About a mile south of the field, I called Tower for sequencing, they told me to turn base. I tried the flaps again; "Nope, they still don't work...". So I just did like in the C120: power to 1500, trim for 70. Cranked in the one notch of flaps that _did_ work. Well, one notch of flaps is really nothing in that plane. And I was still wayyy high. Pattern altitude at SJC is almost twice that at Hayward. And I really wanted to land the plane. So I slipped it. Am not really good at slipping yet, so I did five or six little ones. Slip a little, come out, slip a little more, come out, do a bigger one.... Made my instructor nervous, down there on the ground; he didn't know why the hell the tail was wagging back and forth. My main problem with forward slips is keeping the airplane from sliding sideways... and they got this adjacent runway for the heavies that I wanted to keep well away from. I made it down to the glide slope, landed the airplane without problem. I decided that the problem with the flaps warranted calling it a day, even though I'd only done two landings. I taxied back to parking, tied down the airplane. Played around with the flaps. Here's what the problem was: I had been sitting on this extra vinyl pad to raise the seat height. Kinda like a little kid sitting on phone books. The pad had shifted to the side, and was pushing on the Johnson bar ( flaps handle ). The ratchet was worn such that when the bar was pushed over a bit, the pawl wouldn't engage on the upper teeth. So... nothing really broken, just something to keep in mind. I'd gotten so excited that I forgot to pick up my instructor at the Jet Center! I waited and waited at the parking, wondered what was keeping him. Bye and bye he came along, riding in one of the gas trucks. Oops. We arranged for the next lesson, and did the shirt-back ritual. It reads:
"On this 17th Day of
August, 1996, we
witnessed Jerry
Kaidor slip the surly
bonds in a C140"
On the way back home, I passed a couple in a car with a "Just Married" sign. They pointed at my antique roadster, smiled and waved. I waved back, and thought about Beginnings, theirs and mine. It seems a good moment for a bit of retrospective. To get to the point of sitting in an airplane all by myself and taking it around the patch, I have
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