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My First Solo.. (Read 763 times)
Mar 4th, 2006 at 3:58pm
Jakemaster   Ex Member

 
..no, it hasnt happened yet, but I wrote a story of what it might be like for my english homework (thus the vocabulary) and thought you guys might like it!

     It was a pacific day.  I had spent the past few weeks working on my Pilots License, and I had taken numerous lessons.   This day I was flying in the little red conveyance of the local flight school, a nice Cessna 150.  My instructor was in the right seat, and we were doing patterns, flying around the airport and the surrounding area making countless touch and gos.  I knew in the back of my mind that this day would come, but I didn’t expect so soon.  I turned onto final, and I heard over the radio the gabble of my instructor.
     “Kilo Juliet Hotel Lima traffic, Cessna November Three Four Six Sierra is on final, runway 8, to land”.  I knew what all that meant.  Instead of doing our planned touch and go, we were going to stop.  I didn’t want to, but I knew what would come next. 
     After another impeccable landing, I turned off the runway and the instructor told me to stop the plane.  He turned and said that I had been flying without any problems, and that I had been flying with him for so long that I could handle it alone without any problems.  He got out of the plane, and I began to barter with him to wait for another day. 
     “I’m not ready yet!” I yelled to him.  I began to castigate him for even beginning to think I could handle a solo.  All he did was laugh, and told me that I would be fine, and if I had any problems I could talk to him on the radio.  He reminded me that I had never had any default before, and all my flying was perfect.  Before I could even utter one more word, he slammed the door shut.  I was alone, the only person on the plane.  I announced over the radio that I was taxiing for takeoff, and as I began taxi, I collated all of the reasons why I was okay.  I felt confident in my flying, but it still was worrying to be all alone.  I was scared as I held short at the runway for a Piper Cherokee to land that I began to wonder what type of urn I would be put in when I crashed.
     I turned onto the runway and with a deep breath I pushed in the throttle and the plane began to roll.  My heart felt as if it was beating in time with the planes engine, and as I gained enough speed, I pulled the plane into a precipitous climb and within moments I was flying again.  That’s when I felt a mutation.  I realized that I had nothing to worry about.  I thought of the hundreds of flight hours I had gotten on flight simulator.  I realized that I was not just another crazy student pilot, but I was a pilot, destined to get my license soon.  I finally felt confident, but soon my confidence was subdued.  I wasn’t the only one to have a mutation.  The weather quickly worsened, as giant clouds appeared below me.  My instructor must have felt my worry, as I heard his abstruse words come over the radio.  He was trying to reassure me.  I still could see the airport through an aperture in the clouds, so I felt safe, but not confident.  Turbulence began to shake the plane in an emetic fashion, and I brought it around on base.  I finally felt confident again, but I then I realized I had to land.
     As I lined the plane up for final, I felt as if my life was flashing before my eyes.  I had landed numerous times, but never alone.  Getting up was easy.  Flying was easy.  But putting the plane on the ground was hard.  For some reason the only thought going through my mind was that of the saying “any landing you can walk away from is a good landing”.  That thought made my visualize a heap of metal of my former plane and me climbing out, my skin excoriating against the rough metal.  I was scared.  As I crossed the tarmac, everything seemed okay.  I pulled back on the throttle, flared, and heard the familiar screech of the tires touching down.  I eased onto the brakes, and before I knew it, I was off the runway with my instructor running to the door.  I did it.  I had flown my first solo.
     
 
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Reply #1 - Mar 4th, 2006 at 5:35pm

beefhole   Offline
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I like the blatantly obvious vocab words sprinkled throughout Cheesy

Good piece... and good luck with your solo!  Nothing to be nervous about when you're flying the pattern, you can let your legs shake on your first xcountry Wink (I knew how to, and did use the GPS so I wasn't even nervous on my first solo xcountry either Grin)
 
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Reply #2 - Mar 5th, 2006 at 9:46am

beaky   Offline
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LOL... good idea, bringing your thesaurus along to compensate for the instructor's missing weight... "pacific"... "abstruse"... "emetic"... LOL!!
Grin

You're not far off the mark, though- that's pretty much what it's like for everybody.
And yes, the important thing to remember as a student facing that first solo is that you've already done it without the CFI touching anything or even coaching you, or you wouldn't be getting the green light to go solo.
 

...
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Reply #3 - Mar 11th, 2006 at 9:25am
Jakemaster   Ex Member

 
Thanks guys.  Still waiting for Flight Lessons, hopefully Ill find a way to get them when I go off to college in a few years (fall 2007).  Yeah, normally I could get those vocab words a little less obvious, but for some reason all of our words are always "bad" so its really hard sometimes.  I could always go back and take them out to fix the story up.
 
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Reply #4 - Mar 11th, 2006 at 10:03pm

beaky   Offline
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Quote:
Thanks guys.  Still waiting for Flight Lessons, hopefully Ill find a way to get them when I go off to college in a few years (fall 2007).  Yeah, normally I could get those vocab words a little less obvious, but for some reason all of our words are always "bad" so its really hard sometimes.  I could always go back and take them out to fix the story up.


I think I get it now: you had a list of "five dollar words" that you had to use in the story, right?
Been so long since I was saddled with that nearly-impossible task that it didn't occur to me.. Tongue
However, the thing I see that really makes those cumbersome words  stick out ("cumbersome"; nice word there) is that when you seem unsure of such a word, you set it in a very minimal, unsupportive sentence. "It was a pacific day" is tough, because hardly anybody uses that adjective anymore, especially to describe the weather. One more sentence or phrase that elaborates on that would make better use of the word... and get you closer to the minimum number of words or pages.
For example: "It was a pacific day, with gentle winds and scattered small clouds. The sun beamed benignly in the deep blue sky..."
"Benignly"... another good one... Grin
You see what Imean... unusual or archaic words usually require a little window-dressing, or they just sort of lay down and die, instead of leaping off the page. An important goal is to convince the reader that even if they[i/] have no clue what the word means, at least [i]you do... Grin

Hang in there; soon enough you'll be done with school, then you can really learn how to write.
Grin
 

...
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Reply #5 - Mar 19th, 2006 at 8:48pm

TacitBlue   Offline
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Quote:
Hang in there; soon enough you'll be done with school, then you can really learn how to write.
Grin


I couldn't have put it better myself. I never had an interest in writing until a few years after highschool. For a while, I was working on a "book" but I have to be in the right mood to write, and I haven't been in a long time. It's amazing what you can do with a story when you have no limitations or requirments. The only tip I can give you for writing is this: Don't just tell a story, create a story. Wink
 

...
A&P Mechanic, Rankin Aircraft 78Y

Aircraft are naturally beautiful because form follows function. -TB
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