Musician to Airline Pilot: First out of circuit solo

I've had a few weeks of comparatively little progress, thanks to weather and other things, until today where I met a fairly major milestone - the first out of circuit solo. This was a particularly big moment for me as it represents roughly where I had reached in my PPL studies before starting at CTC and was therefore a rather more significant test than the first solo out here. It was certainly a much more daunting prospect as it goes beyond the flying of the aeroplane and adds in a lot more radio work, arrival and departure procedures for a controlled aerodrome and navigating to and from the training area.

The weather was very changeable during the day with showers coming in and out of the area. Add to that an unserviceable aircraft and my morning attempt was a failure. However, a helpful instructor got me onto another aircraft in the afternoon so, after a quick lunch, I was able to depart just after 1.30. The flight is 2 hours long though I ended up coming back a little early thanks to some showers hanging over the airfield that I needed to stay ahead of.

The route was due West to Raglan harbour where I was to practise some steep turns (around 45 degrees angle of bank) and some PFLs (Practice Forced Landing). This was essentially the subject matter of the preceding two lessons with the instructor so was no problem content-wise. The much bigger challenge for me was all the R/T procedures that go with getting in and out of the Hamilton Control Zone while taking care to remain at appropriate altitudes so as not to bust the controlled airspace above on the way out to the coast.

One of the main challenges of PFLs in this area is the lack of open fields in which to land if necessary. The following four photographs show the kind of terrain I mean:

Nonetheless, it is still possible to practise the procedure as we are not allowed to descend below 500'agl which means that the glide descent, engine restart procedures and Mayday calls (not real of course) can all be covered in time. Further out to the coast I was able to dodge the clouds and get a nice bit of sunshine to practise my steep turns. These went much better than in the lesson with very little altitude loss/gain during each one.

Then it was almost time to go back to the airfield with a couple more 'surprise' PFLs along the way. I did one of these but then noticed a fairly hefty cloud sitting over the airfield ahead of me so decided to expedite my return. I got in touch with the tower and was told to wait around for a while outside the zone. This is the most intimidating bit as you can be cleared to join the circuit in lots of different ways, some of which are quite hard to visualise. I had drawn myself a map of the various arrival procedures so was surprised to be given one using the opposite side of the airfield to where I was. I duly set off only to be recleared a new arrival directly in front of me. I was quite high by this point so had to go to idle power and full flap as soon as possible to lose the height. That all worked out quite well and I managed one of my best landings, touching down smootly on the numbers of 18R. All in all a very successful day so next it's on to some basic instrument flying before starting the full Navigation phase in a couple of weeks.

We've had quite a lot of time to get out and about recently too so here are a few snaps from some of the more scenic places: