First solo XC

I woke up the morning of my first solo XC and immediately looked out the window to see if the overcast that had covered our skies the past few days had cleared up. What I saw looked promising, but I wasn't totally convinced I would be able to fly. I called for a weather briefing, hoping he would tell me it would be blue skies in a couple hours, but he didn't, instead I got a briefing that described exactly what I saw out my window.

I went ahead and finished up my XC planning, even though I told myself that if the weather wasn't near perfect that I would postpone. The coast here in San Diego can be pretty stubborn when it comes to that overcast burning away, and my XC route was directly up the coastline to Torrance. I finished my planning, ate breakfast, showered, and headed off to the airport.

When I arrived at the airport the skies had significantly cleared up, this was confirmed by a CFI who was just out flying and said it was a beautiful day out there. My CFI wasn't at the school today, so I had another CFI check my flight planning and endorse my logbook...whoops...where is my logbook? Where is my headset bag? Doh! I forgot two of the most important things at home. Luckily my wonderful fiance drove them up to me, and I was able to get the endorsement I needed not but two minutes before his next lesson walked through the door.

With everything in order, and legal I was off to preflight the airplane. Once the preflight inspection was complete, I was soon off into the skies. The first order of business was to trim the airplane to the best rate of climb speed, and wait until I reached my cruising altitude of 4,500. Once I reached 4,500 I estimated the time en-route to my next check point. Now that I was on my way, it was time to activate my flight plane. I called up the frequency I had wrote down, but no response. Dammit! I must have written a bad frequency down. I was nervous about flying for too long without flight following, so I called them up. Apparently I was well outside there area, but they stayed with me. Now back to the flight plan...wait, I am with SoCal Approach now, I cant change frequencies...no flight plan this time I guess.

With the rough start behind me, the rest of the leg went smoothly. SoCal approach pretty much let me fly through class C just as I had planned, and once flight following was terminated, Torrance tower let me make a straight in approach for landing. Easy! My landing at KTOA was one of my best landings in recent memory...a much needed confidence boost at this point. I taxied back for takeoff, and was soon climbing to my cruising altitude of 5,500.

I made another attempt to activate my flight plan, but again no response at the frequency I was trying to contact. I decided to contact Flight Watch and see if they could help. Flight Watch was nice enough to give me a frequency I could call up, and a minute later my flight plan was active. Next it was time to contact SoCal approach again for flight following. The leg home went smoothly, but I did have one intense moment when SoCal told me to look for traffic at my 10 o'clock. I saw a jetliner off in the distance taking off, and reported I had the traffic in sight. A second later I saw another jetliner climbing right at me off my right wing. I radioed again, saying that I had the wrong traffic before, but now I have the correct traffic. SoCal had the jetliner make a turn to their left, and it ended up flying under me by what seemed like 500 feet. Pretty intense!

The rest of the trip home was uneventful and calm, although my nerves were on high alert, as I constantly scanned for traffic. Once I was near Palomar I was once again immediately cleared to land, with another Cessna right behind me. The landing went smooth, and I taxied back to my flight school with a sense of accomplishment. I just flew this plane...for real. Not just around the traffic pattern, but I went somewhere. I talked to people. I followed directions. And I did it safely.

On a side note: I recently purchased a Nexus 7 tablet with the intention of using it as an in flight GPS. I brought it along with me on this flight, mounted it to my yoke, and ran Naviator as my moving map. Everything worked great and really made my workload much lighter. Although I plan on using this once I get my ticket, I think next solo XC I will leave it at home, so I can be more prepared when it comes time to the check ride.

Suzy Q

San Diego coastline, north of Camp Pendelton

the waters near the Queen Mary

my Nexus 7 running Naviator

just gotta follow the magenta line