The weather is perfect, clear blue summer sky and it’s the turn of my first solo land away at Earls Colne.
I called in my PPR the previous day so that I could leave Stapleford before they opened at 9AM. The only problem was that I wasn’t able to ask them what runway they were currently on, but obviously I had to prepare for both.
I set off and everything was going well, I felt like a noticable improvement in confidence with the R/T. Visibility was great which really helped. It took me a few seconds to spot Earls Colne but I could remember the cross cut between the trees. Overhead join was all good, though concentrating so much on the downwind join and that slightly different circuit that I forgot to do the downwind call so “late downwind” it is, carrying out some of the checks and starting to slow the speed down. I sped up a bit to vacate the runway but it felt a bit hard to slow down at the end, so just a gentle reminder to myself not to speed and rush.
Parked up in the same place as yesterday and once again I took a few minutes to have a chat with the staff, gathered my thoughts, checked the plane and then set off on my return to Stapleford.
On my return journey I was all over the place with the altitude, I need to bake in more regular checks of altitude and make more subtle adjustments. I also need to try to take my time with the nav, I jumped to identifying Brentwood and the junction but I was still a few minutes away and confused myself.
Overall – really exciting!! What a day.