First Solo Cross Country

DeltaASA16

Well-Known Member
Hoorray!
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I just did my first solo cross country today!

The flight was from w24 (Falwell) to MTV (Martinsville). I'll try and keep this one short and sweet but rich in detail!

After a 20 minute wait on hold, I finally filed my flight plan and departed Falwell at 11:20 am (1520Z) My Insructor had given me a clip board where I had my nav log and sectional chart "clipped on." It was resting on my knee as I climbed out over Lynchburg, Virginia and opened my flight plan. The flight was rather uneventful except that my wind correction angle was a litte severe so I had to recorrect and scattered clouds were only 5 hundred feet above my cruising altitude of 4500 MSL. Visibility was great, about 10-15 miles I'd say (Great weather when most days are less than 6 miles due to hot and humid conditions.) I came in decending over the City of Martinsville and perfomed the Right hand traffic (oopps) and landed on runway 12.

I walked in and called the leesburg FSS to close my Flight Plan. While standing there, I met a charter pilot who was filing a IFR return trip. I was put on hold again for a long time (suprise suprise) and we got to talking. Turns out, he is a captian for Flight Equity Charters and is Based out of an Airport in the New York Class B airspace. He was a real friendly guy and told me different tricks you can do in a C-152 and told me about how he became a pilot. Since I like asking so many questions, I asked him what brought him to MTV.
Turns out, he was Flying the CEO for Nautica Clothing! Yeah, I just stood there and gawked! Turns out he flys Hillary Clinton rather often and has met Bill Clinton on the Flight line also! WOW!

He took me out and showed me his plane! It was a Beechjet 400. Really nice inside! After about 5 minutes it was time to go. The CEO arrived to return to New York and I was due to open my flight plan in a matter of minutes (1700Z)

I started up the 152 and held while the Jet taxiied out and took off. I was # 2 behind the Jet and departed performing a left 270 degree turn opening my flight plan.

The return trip was flown using VOR navigation to the LYH VOR. Nothing interesting except I forgot to turn my transponder on to altitude and left it on stand by (oopps). Well, LYH Tower informed me that I wasn't showing a sqwak code and I caught it right before entering class D airspace. I landed at W24 and closed the flight plan.

A great trip! Questions and Comments welcomed!

DeltaASA16
 
For your next solo, get on over to Stafford (RMN) and I'll buy you a soda from the FBO there. The guys there are great and you'll see a lot of guys flying corporate jets there as well.
 
Hey congratulations. That is the first big step in my opinion. Taking the plane from point a to point b successfully.

I still have mine etched into my mind.

Keep on truckin, oh I mean flyin.

Man where are all these bad jokes of mine coming from.
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Tom
 
Congrats! sounds like you had fun, just wait til your long cross country it will be even more fun.
 
Yeah the long one is fun.

I went from Davenport (dvn) to aurora (arr) to champaign (forgot the airport code) back to davenport.

Just before getting to davenport the sun was starting to set. Very cool.

Tom
 
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Just before getting to davenport the sun was starting to set. Very cool.


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heh..."someone I know", on their first solo long XC four years ago or so, had a delay getting fuel at one of the stops which caused 1.8 hrs. of the 4 hour flight to be at night (but I think he "forgot" to log it as such). Oops.
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sunset, sunrise, and night are my favorite times to fly.

High noon is good too. Its in between when the bright sun is right in your eye.

Tom
 
cool deal!

My CFI ended up sending me out on mine the day after our dual x/c. I had no time to think about it - we got back at 10pm from my dual and I met him at 10am the next morning to go over my flight planning. I ended up doing the longer x/c first, too - it was over 100 degrees that day. Hot, but tons of fun.

Sarah
 
I just did my second solo x-c yesterday... flew from Hampton to Athens (AHN) again, because I couldnt get ahold of my flight instructor to sign my endorsement to MCN.... so now I just have the long one to do... I think Im going to fly to AHN, then to MJL (which will be a lot of fun because you fly down lake sinclair for about 25-30 miles) and then back.... It was fun yesterday because Atlanta Control actually gave me vectors and told me to descend and stuff instead of the usual "transponder so and so.... radar service terminated"... this saturday I hope to make my night dual x-c, if the weather is good enought.
 
Hey Viper, The CEO , Mr. Chu, was in MTV to visit the Textile Mills in Martinsville. At least that was what the Beech Captian told me
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Thanks for the responses! You guys are great!

DeltaASA16
 
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