First solos suck

[flightgeek]

Hello everyone!

I spend hours on this site. All the stories, oppinions, and experience here baffles me. I love it. Anyways, I just want to hear stories about everyone's first solo flight.
Mine was a complete disaster. Through no fault of my own, on the third and final landing, my right main landing gear broke off and I went skidding down the runway on my right wing and nose gear. My plane and I were disabled on the runway and the airport closed for an hour because the other runway was closed for resurfasing. This happened in June of 2002. Today the plane and I are still flying, just not together.
Please respond with stories of your own.

 

[groundpointsix]

Wow. You must really suck. I greased all three of my landings. Just kidding.

Seriously though, I think everyone has some sort of horror story from their first solo, and anyone who tells you they greased 3 landings their first time is lying. (I tell myself that anyways) Anyways, my first solo landing I locked up the breaks and went squeeling down the runway. My instructor came up to me after the landing and said simply "You know what you did wrong." Yeah, I did. I think everyone within a half mile of the airport knew too.

Good to see you got back up on the horse.

 

[banned username 2]

Through no fault of my own, on the third and final landing, my right main landing gear broke off and I went skidding down the runway on my right wing and nose gear.

HOLY CRAP! BATMAN!

Just curious, who's fault was this?

 

[flightgeek]

It turned out that before my flight school bought the airplane, some maintnence had bed done that wasn't in the books. The wheels had been replaced, but the nuts and bolts holding it on were too small. They weren't the originals. I was the lucky 10,000th.

 

[banned username 2]

Yikes... scary stuff... Glad I don't instruct anymore... too much liability!

 

[bobbysamd]

Bizarre!

As I was reading your post I was thinking, where in the h-ll was that guy's instructor? No matter how much pressure an instructor is under, if he/she is worth his/her salt and likes his/her pilot certificate, he/she won't send a student to solo until the student is ready.

Guess it was your day to hit the lottery. Hope you've gotten past it and are enjoying your flying.

 

[Deftone45075]

flightgeek,

Did you develop a condition that makes you land on the left wheel first from then on, regardless of wind?

My first solo was pretty non eventfull, all three landings were painted on (YEAH RIGHT). Anyway, good to see it didn't deter you from flying.

 

[flightgeek]

Ok, first of all, I was ready. I had been flying for 6 months (it took me that long to get my medical/don't ever tell the examiner you have asthma no matter how mild the case), everything was going fine. Airspeed was right on, power, everything. It would have been a smooth landing right on the numbers. My instructor was on the ground watching me and listening on the radio the entire time. He was/is the assistant chief flight instructor at the school. He's earned it and seeing his face after the crash was the greatest sign of relief you could imagine. I couldn't ask for a better instructor. His post counciling is what got me back on the horse. I soloed again less than a month later.
The problem with the landing gear was internal. Maintnence would have actually had to take the wheel off the find the problem, which is why it wasn't noticed on any inspection. But the whole incident changed the way inspections are done. Now every Tomahawk is checked for that on every inspection 50 and 100 hour.

 

[flightgeek]

Wind was no factor that day. I kept the atis as sort of a memorandum. Winds were variable at 4. At the time, my personal minimum was a 15 not crosswind because it's what I was used to. My God how things have changed......

 

[RunUp]

Even though it was over 10 years ago, my first solo seems like yesterday.

Mid-field downwind. Pre-landing checklist. "Carb heat on." Pulled out red knob instead of the white one. Just as the engine started to sputter I realized what I had done. Shoved the mixture knob in so hard it's luck I didn't shove it straight through the firewall.