I just got home from a amazing flight. The weather was reasonable – the sky was clear, which on one hand is good, but on the other bad because the air becomes turbulent below 1,500 feet. The winds were 12 knots from the north, so I had to compensate for a slight crosswind.
Lots of cool things happened, so I’ll try not to miss anything! First of all, the plane we were given was not exactly perfect…there was a minor inconvenience with how the radio worked, as well as a shimmy in the landing gear. Then, when we were requesting clearance to taxi to the runway, the Tower told us that they were short staffed, so we would not be able to do circuits. We were welcome to depart the airport, however, so we chose to fly to Carp Airport, 14 nm (27 km) from Ottawa International.
The flight to Carp was typical, and when we were getting close, we discovered there was no traffic already doing circuits – so far so good. After our first landing, a plane joined the circuit, and then another. Before we knew it, there were four planes all in the circuit!
Even though that’s a fair number, it would’ve been safe if everybody used their radios freely. Somebody, however, decided that they were going to skip the circuit and fly straight in, not warning us that they would cross our path. Fortunately, they saw us at the last minute and warned us, so we were able to climb quickly and avoid them. We overshot and headed back to Ottawa!
The flight was 1.1 hours in total. So far, I have recorded 12.5 hours in my logbook since January – almost depressing, but fairly good considering that it is winter, and also that I have been fitting flying in between classes at Carleton. My next flight is Wednesday.
Great post: danger, quick thinking, happy ending. Two questions: 1) 12.5 hrs. sounds pretty good… how many DO you need in total, to be on your own? 2) Can the pilot of the plane that chose to skip circuit expect a penalty of some kind? or what happens in a case like that, to make him aware of what the proper procedures are?
Thanks for the questions!
1) There is no hour limit on the first solo, but the average is 25 hours. The fact I’m able to in the teens isn’t all luck; my previous gliding experience helps a lot in understanding theory as well as getting the “feel” of the plane.
2) Carp happens to be uncontrolled, meaning there is no ATC (Air Traffic Control) there to regulate traffic. That means that pilots are simply expected to follow standard, published procedures. However, nothing stops anybody from deviating from those, or from not using the radio.