He, he, he, he, he (insert permagrin here) he, he, he, he....
Soloed the Coupe today!!!! My instructor finally got out his
scissors
and bared my back to the whole airport! Man, what a neat feeling, I
still have sore dimples from all the smilin'!
Didn't think I would be able to solo today since yesterday I blew
almost every landing (in my opinion anyway, according to my
instructor
any landing's a good one if you can still get the windows open :o)
For some reason I didn't hold back long enough and then couldn't keep
the nose from getting into a bounce and then having to add power to
stabilize the oscillations. Don't know if it was the new tire I put
on (the old tire had a little lower pressure since I was trying to
keep it from shimmying- this one's right on 17psi) or maybe it was
just the fact that the last time I flew was a week ago, who knows.
Anyway, it didn't matter today because got back in the groove, held
my
flare, and made some good landings so my instructor said, "take me
home" and as we were taxiing grilled me like a nervous parent on
about
any possible situation I should encounter and what I would do.
He didn't mention Les Schwab's Citation jet pulling up to the runway
on my third solo landing! Fortunately Mr. Schwab's pilot sees us fly
all the time and graciously waited for me to land and then pull off
to
back-taxi on another runway.
The only other obstacle I had was the RC field that lies about
perfectly under the base leg for this runway- makes for a little
longer upwind to stay clear when you're 170 pounds lighter!
Afterwards
I drove over and chatted with the RC pilots. One fellow is even
looking to buy a plane and was extremely interested in Coupes- maybe
a
future addict?!
Well you can see I'm pretty excited. The Coupe has been a real
blessing and one of the best "investments" I've ever made, well at
least that's what I tell my wife!
I still haven't heard the history of getting your "tails cut." Any
of
you folks happen to know? I understand that its been around for a
while but I would be interested in knowing details of what got it
started.
Keep it light!
Joa
N94432 '50 415G
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