Broken Aeroplanes, Green Lasers And First Night Solo

Your first ever solo flight during initial PPL training is an achievement and a milestone in your journey to becoming a pilot, as it rightly should be. You’ve just been given solo control of a rather expensive hunk of flying metal and told to fly it around the circuit… preferably without bending it. My first solo was memorable but I wasn’t anxious. I was excited, but my early training was keeping me “grounded” (pardon the pun.)

Unlike the US where getting a PPL gives you night flying privileges, the UK has an additional course and rating for this purpose. And so you have your “first night solo” to contend with — five solo take offs and full stop landings. The night I was to do my solo circuits I was excited and really looking forward to nailing my landings on a strip of tarmac that looks like a deep black void as you get ever closer.

First, get a couple of circuits with my instructor done — they like to know you can still remember how to take off, land and all the other good stuff. Easy…

First, the pre-flight.

“Here we go,” I muttered to myself. In nearly 3 years and 140 hours of flying, this is the first time I personally rejected an aircraft. It took me less than thirty seconds to identify a perfectly good reason not to fly it — Cessna 172 aircraft sit in a rather pronounced…