Trim Tab Altitude is everything!

Finally! I went up solo today!

Unal and I spent an hour doing circuits, preparing me for the check flight at 9:30. After that flight, we went inside and met the check pilot, Derrick. Derrick and I flew a few circuits so I could show that I was ready to go solo. I was taken by suprise when he acted like a regular instructor, putting spins on what I had to do. For example, usually I only use the flaps if I am high, but Derrick got me to set up my approach to that I needed 20 or 40 degrees of flaps. Believe me, that takes good estimating skills!

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.

Since the last flight was not really useful in refreshing my skills, we flew a few circuits today. Not much happened, except that the hospital helicopter flew by in front of us at the same altitude. Unal called my last landing "beautiful", because even though I made a small mistake during the flare, I knew how to correct it, and was able to stop the plane from literally dropping a few feet onto the runway!

I have another flight under my belt now. When I went to the flying club today, the winds were 20 knots gusting 30. Unal asked me if I wanted to go up, and I said absolutely. We were directed to runway 32, which is the 10,000' one, which meant that we had to taxi all the way to the main apron, and follow WestJet planes.

I just found my score for the pre-solo exam (the one I wrote on the 16^th)! When I was talking to Unal on the phone this evening, he mentioned I had "two small errors" on the exam. Roughly, that converts to 95%!

The OFC (Ottawa Flying Club) pre-solo exam is not actually required by the government to get my license, but the flying club makes me write it before they trust me with their planes.

I got my PSTAR results back yesterday! My grade is...92% (four incorrect answers). Sounds high, but don't forget that a passing grade is 90%

I reviewed the exam, and I am mostly sastisfied with the mark. One question, though, was a "silly" mistake. Here it is:
Avoiding wake turbulence is:

The PSTAR is an exam that students must take before being allowed to solo. It is made up of 50 questions taken from a publicly viewable list of 200 questions. Given that, it is not suprising that the pass mark is 90%.

All week I've been studying for it by using a couple of websites that give answers to the questions, and scheduled today as the date I would write it.

Unfortunately, Unal got stuck in his laneway, so he wasn't at the Club, but I was able to write it anyway.

Since I couldn't fly yesterday because of weather, Unal and I did an hour of circuits today. Mom stayed in the club where she could watch, and said she enjoyed it. I did 95% of the flight including radio, and did pretty well. I think we did five touch-and-gos, then one overshoot from full flaps, and then a full stop.

An interesting element to the flight was a flock of birds that stayed between 600 and 800 feet in the air, just past the end of the runway. We had to be careful not to hit one, or the plane would have been a mess.

So I flew a 1.8 hour flight with Unal today - completely the longest flight so far!

The weather was amazing, which was a good thing except for the fact that it made the sun really bright. The temperature was almost hot in the plane, even without a coat on.

We flew out to the practice area, where we practiced forced landings. Basically, we bring the engine down to a low power setting, and lower the flaps until the rate of descent simulates the rate of a descent with no engine at all. Then I have to do a ton of stuff really quickly, including