Flying Journal

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Today was my first unattended solo.  In some ways for me this seemed like a bigger deal than my first solo.  This one was all me.  I scheduled the plane and every thing from start to finish, the pre-flight, run up, departure, was all mine.

As agreed with Michael this one would be local in the pattern only.  But still all mine.  Michael would know when I would be flying and we touched base on weather earlier in the day but the actual act of flying and it's success or failure would be all mine.

It almost didn't happen - the wind wasn't being very friendly.  Not super strong but one of those rare (only 10-15 days a year in this corner) where the normal climatic patterns were turned around and it was straight out of the south.  But I knew that the wind would die as the sun sank lower.  I was scheduled from 5PM to 7PM (Sunset this day was due about 8:10PM after which I wouldn't be legal).

Anyway - I completed my preflight about 6:15pm - nope, still no wind.  So I sat and waited, and waited, and waited.  Finally about 7pm the wind sock suddenly slumped against the pole and was light and variable.  I waited another few minutes and it seemed to want to stay that way.  I figured by the time I got all started and through the run-up I'd have burned another 10 minutes so it was time to get going.

So crawl in the plane, get all settled in.  It's amazing how much roomier things feel with just one person.  Start things up and realize that this is pretty cool.  A quick call to tower for taxi clearance since I've got ATIS - been checking it every 10 minutes for almost an hour.

I taxied down to 25R and do my run-up and call for my takeoff clearance.  As I rolled down the runway there was definitely another "this is it" moment.  In some ways this was more of an event for me than my first solo.  That was short and very constrained in its time and behavior.  This one was just me from start to finish.

One nice thing about being late on my start is it was a beautiful Friday evening and I had the whole airport to myself.  So up and around I went.  Takeoffs, landings, shorts, softs.  The whole hour or so I was up we had just one other departure and one arrival and no one in the pattern.  It was just me and the one controller.  I could tell he was pretty bored too - when you have exchanges like: 

"Zero-Niner Quebec, Number 1 Cleared for the Option Two-Five Right"

"Roger, we'll be full stop with a taxi-back on this one, Zero-Nine Quebec"

"Not a problem Zero-Niner you can pretty much land any way and where you want..."

So it was fun.  It definitely was short.  I was on downwind thinking it was about time to wrap up - the fog was rolling over the Oakland Hills to the West and the sun had settled behind some of the fog so it was getting dark quick.  A combination of realizing the approach lights had been turned on and looking at my watch and seeing that I had about five minutes to official sunset meant it was time to come down and go home.  But even this little .9 hours was a kick, this is definitely going to be a lot of fun...