Ty Ewup

SO I went in the Aircraft by myself. Not once but twice.

You strap 6 millions dollars to yourself, and its good times. I was pissing myself scared on my first solo.

There I was sitting in the front, with the ground crew guy (or might have been girl I dont remember), waiting for me to give some hand signals. So I stared at the instruments, thinking to myself; "I wonder if i could still take a job as a bus boy". A moment of pure panic as I realized I was supposed to start up this 1100Horse Power engine and fly the 6500lbs beast around the traffic pattern. So I did, almost from muscle memory (my brain was spotty at best), hoping beyond hope I didn't break it, and then the prop started turning.

Only I wasn't relived, now that the damn thing was moving, I had to monitor the engine for the rest of the flight. Its what I like to call, A fucking liability.

To explain, I'm gonna back it up a bit, back to the flight ready room. Hanging out, after class, you know, the usual. The idea of flying by myself not really sinking in yet. So the Flight Commander sits me down in one of the little briefing rooms for my "pre-solo" brief. Which I thought was going to be a little pep talk. A verbal pat on the bum if you will...only in non homosexual way...moving on.

The "Pre-solo brief" can be summed up in one word: Eject.
He kept giving me questions, the answer was always eject.
1. "if your engine fails on take-off, what do you do" (in my head: THE ENGINE FAILING ON TAKE OFF?? Are you kidding me! Im going to fly in 20 minutes and the engine is going to die...oh god...Im gonna die...Im gonna be the first Canadian to ever die in the Harvard)
What I actually said was "uh...uh.. (this is me freaking out in the honest reaction of looking stupid"
He prompts me "Don't think, ACT"
I reply "Eject"
He smiles and asks "Are you going to call tower?"
"If theres time?"
"NO, theres never time, you will eject when you confirm your engine is dead"
Questions 2,3,4, and 5 all were answered with "eject" and once "level wings, eject"

It went on from there with me rapidly realizing this engine, when it goes, is a fucking liability. You dont glide, you plummet, you are now a 82 buick flying at 1200' from where the ground is. Gravity's a bitch.

Did I think about this when the Damned thing did start? No, I was spazzing about the next page or two of checks I had to raddle off before I could start moving.

I said them all out loud, even paused when the instructor usually confirmed stuff. I did everything as per usually. Yup, business as usual. No crazy non-instructor flight over here...

So we get to the Take-off,only fucking up my Radio call once or twice,and ungainly start climbing into the sky. Clawing my way for altitude is another way to put it. When I realize something, things are a lot louder than normal. Oh God, I think to myself, Engine failure on Take off...damn you flight commander, you fucking jinxed me.

I can hear the engine even more, the wind, everything. Quickly I check my gauges, all of them...and check again. No...engine is good...then I figured it out. It was so quiet because there wasn't anyone beaking in the back "you did this wrong and this and this". It was just me and the plane. By this time I had missed my level off altitude and started to try flying the plane again. I got back on altitude and started to do what I had done literally dozens of times before.

I still called out my checks, tried self-critiquing during take off, eventually landed for the full stop and taxi'd off the runway.

Shut the engine down...got out...unstrapped...walked back to Ops (operations, where you sign out the plane...think bowling shoes only a few orders of magnitude more expensive and without that smell)and relaxed. The whole body, just sighed. I had done it: 1. I didn't break the Airplane 2. I didn't Kill anyone/myself.

Standard Met.