2.5 Solo 3
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This page can contain a collection of personal notes, steps to remember, finished and unfinished content. Please excuse brevity.
Do not use specific information given like fuel flow, landing/take-off distances for your flights. Always refer to the POH of your exact plane for flight preparation. My information is just for references that I used.
Flight lesson 2.5 - Solo 3
| Lesson number | Lesson name | Lesson date(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 2.5 | Solo 3 | 28-09-2026 |
The flight lesson 2.5 with name Solo 3 focusses again on basic flight procedures being alone in the cockpit. I already did one circuit solo in my first solo flight and did the steep turns solo and headed back. This lesson focusses more on airmanship and
- Take-off
- Leave the circuit
- Climbing turn (15 degrees)
- Descending turns (30 degrees)
- Rejoin the circuit
- Make a full stop landing (or touch and go if possible)
This is again really a very basic flight where most aspects will come into play, as well as every memory item, procedure and radio call must be performed. A great way to further step up the game in solo flight, as we have to make 10 hours of solo before getting a PPL license.
The weather during this lesson
The weather during this lesson was Okay, but somewhat deteriorating. We had a sky filled with some cumulus clouds with a layer of stratus above it, causing some light drizzle. The wind was somewhat variable but cross to our runway. No big crosswind challenges here, but something to take into account.
The METAR of a close aerodrome stated:
METAR XXXX 281325Z AUTO 32005KT 240V020 9999 FEW041 SCT069 BKN075 22/15 Q1020=
| METAR information | Explaination |
|---|---|
| AUTO | Automatically generated by weather station |
| 32005KT | Wind coming from 320 degrees at 5 knots |
| 240V020 | Variable wind between 240 and 020 degrees |
| 9999 | Visibility of 10 km or more |
| FEW041 | Few clouds, of maximum 2/8 coverage on 4100 feet AGL |
| SCT069 | Scattered clouds, of maximum 4/8 coverage on 6900 feet AGL |
| BKN075 | Broken clouds, of maximum 7/8 coverage on 7500 feet AGL |
| 22/15 | Temperature 22 degrees celcuis, dewpoint 15 degrees, relative humidity 68% |
| Q1020 | Air pressure calculated back to sealevel: 1020 hPa |
| = | End of METAR |
Flying the Solo 3 lesson
As the Solo 3 lesson was right after the Solo 2 lesson, the flight instructor told me the plane was free for 1,5 hours and the weather was okay. As I already drove to the aerodrome, it could be great to add another solo flight to this afternoon. I agreed and reminded the last winter where I got a spree of 5 lessons being cancelled.
So I stepped back in the same plane where I was 15 minutes ago. I proceeded to the holding point of the runway and took off with no remarks. After leaving the circuit, I climbed to 1500 feet while doing a right turn at 15 degrees of bank angle which already covers the climbing turn. On 1500 feet I stabilized and performed the after take-off checklist.
From 1500 feet, I climbed in a turn to the left to 2000 feet where I noticed the weather becoming somewhat worse in the west. I decided this can be a problem if being in the air for an hour but not for a very short flight of this.
At 2000 feet, I noticed some (few) clouds being not that much higher than me flying, worse than the METAR told us, so I decided to make a decending turn over right and stay at 1500 feet to be clear of the clouds. Then I saw the weather on the right becoming worse and decided to fly back to the aerodrome. Before entering the traffic circuit/pattern, I again had to descend and did this over left, so I did both exercises over the left and right side.
I re-entered the circuit with much less traffic this time and made a stable circuit with great turns. During the circuit my plan was to do one touch and go, but on the end of downwind, some rain started falling down, so I decided to change that decision to a full-stop. I also called out being on base as some traffic was already on the holding point, keeping them sharp and telling I’m inbound.
Then I landed the plane in a better way than in the Solo 2 flight, but room for improvement. After landing and parking the plane, an unknown man came to me and asked which flight I did and told me and my instructor that he was behind me and I was doing a great job. For me this made my day. Haha. Now back to the things that could be done better.
Remarks
Of course, Im a little bit of a perfectionist so every lesson has some remarks:
- Getting the right flare height and amount of input
- No altitude changes in turns, keep the plane on the desired altitude
- More focus on actual flying as radio calls and procedures get more natural now. Example, being on final and the radio is busy? Land the plane, and dont wait to make the call. Aviate, Navigate and then if time left; communicate.
Happy with both lessons on one day. Now it feels like I’m really make some progress, especially when both flights are solo flights.
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