The weather finally cooperated, and I did my solo x\/c to Palm Springs (PSP) today. What a great flight! Got very organized, stayed very calm. Made two minor mistakes right away. First was that I took my hand off the throttle to write down the time off, and didn’t tighten the throttle lock. By the time I noticed it backing off, I was at about 50% power. No wonder the climb rate was so lousy. Next, I forgot to open my flight plan. Filed it, just never opened it. Since the plan was not to crash, no real harm done.<\/p>\n
Headed direct to the Pomona VOR, then along the 10 freeway to just past Ontario. A bit south from there to Banning (BNG), and through the pass to PSP. There is a large area of windmills at the east end of the pass, so I thought that would be neat to see. It was, until I realized why they put them there – it’s ALWAYS windy in that area. Got thrown around a bit, but nothing too major. Made a nice landing at PSP and grabbed a bite to eat. The ride out was even more turbulent, as the days heat wore on. Once past BNG, it smoothed right out.<\/p>\n
Great trip. Hit every checkpoint, was never lost for a second – even when ATC vectored me around some Ontario traffic. Times were right on (arrival was within 1 minute of plan!) and I felt in control at all times. Can’t wait to do another one. Kent suggested I head to Tehachapi for my next one – a small uncontrolled airport tucked away in some mountains near Mojave.<\/p>\n
Getting close to finishing up now. I’ll take the written some time this week or early next week, and am still studying for the oral. As far as flying goes, I have the long x\/c to do, 2.3 hours of hood time (including unusual attitude recovery – I’m sure Kent can hardly wait), and 6 more night landings to do. I need to practice soft and short field procedures a bit more, and some other maneuvers (turns around a point and S turns in particular) before I’ll feel ready for the checkride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The weather finally cooperated, and I did my solo x\/c to Palm Springs (PSP) today. What a great flight! Got very organized, stayed very calm. Made two minor mistakes right away. First was that I took my hand off the throttle to write down the time off, and didn’t tighten the throttle lock. By the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-private-pilot-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kellybakst.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}