Chicago Aviation

Length: 1.5 hours
Total Time: 27.6 hours

This was my first full solo. I checked the weather on my own and made my own agenda for the flight. Although this doesn't seem like a major change, there's a lot to be said for someone else letting you know that the winds are acceptable for flight. This time I didn't get the same comfort level and confidence buildup before the solo portion of the flight as all of my previous flights started with my instructor.

After checking the automated weather report, you need to check the actual wind on the field. This is done by finding the windsock(s) (or tetrahedron, or landing tee). According to FAA standards, a 15 knot (17mph) wind will fully extend the windsock. A 3 knot (3.5mph)breeze will cause the windsock to orient itself according to the wind. That means I probably was looking at anywhere from 8 knot to 13 knot winds as the windsock was floating at a 45° angle. The AWOS (Automated Weather Observing System) was reading a 13 knot wind gusting to 19 knot.

The wind was coming between 270° and 310°. This would have me taking off on runway 27. I am currently rated for 15 knot winds with a 8 knot crosswind component. You can see from the below chart that the crosswind varies drastically with orientation to the runway.

Today I was looking at anywhere from 0° - 40° angle of wind from runway 27. This would give me a crosswind component anywhere from 0 - 16 knots.



With these details, I decided that I am comfortable with my crosswind landings enough to handle this amount of wind. I have recently received some dual time landing at Gary with some varying winds, so that was enough to let me know where my skills were.

After run up, I heard a call from another plan on downwind for 27. I saw it and decided that I could easily takeoff before it turned final. It wasn't as nice as having nothing to worry about, but it wasn't a factor.

When I took off, the winds were up, but not too much crosswind as they were coming from 280°. After takeoff, I only had to apply a minor crab angle to hold my bearing.

I was still thinking about the clearance distances between my takeoff and the landing of the plane behind me during my turn to crosswind. I made a horrible call to the effect of "Lansing Traffic, Cessna 16U turning crosswind on Runway 9" (too wordy and stated the wrong runway) when it should have been simply "Lansing Traffic, Cessna 16U turning crosswind"

After departing the pattern to the South, my nerves were still up. I was looking all over the place trying to find any contacts in the area. I was traveling bearing 180° and about 70 kts. I saw a small line of cumulus clouds were at around 3,000 topping off around 4,500-6,000. I went to a relatively clear patch of sky and held 5,500 MSL. Since I was above the cloud line, the air was pretty smooth.

Once I had myself situated, I practiced the following:

• Straight & Level flight
• Steep Turns (45° bank)
• Power-off Stalls -- engine at idle and raise the nose until the speed drops below Vso)
• Slow Flight
• Minimum Controllable Airspeed