Solo Cross Country PPL
01 Sep 2005An annoying day because of the weather, it was forecast too bad to go in the morning but would clear up and become perfect later. My instructor was also taking another student pilot up on the same route so he eventually decided that we should take a chance on the weather and went for it, he departed first and then about 5 mins later I took off and headed down towards Ivybridge dodging around the cloud.
Once I got there I turned up towards Crediton and contacted Exeter, I was only flying about 6/700ft agl when I was going over the moors because the cloud was so low. Once I reached Crediton the cloud lifted a bit and I turned towards Bath, flying over the M5 for a while and having to go straight through the Yeovilton area of intense aerial activity (3 helicopters and 2 jets passed in front of me)
Once I reached bath I was told to descend to 2000ft because there was a jet turning final above me going into Bristol (I could see right down the runway and a plane had just taken off), I turned towards Filton and then joined left base for 27 flew straight over my instructors head (he had landed and was parked slightly to the left, but almost below the approach path) and landed perfectly. Parked, shut down, said hello to my instructor, paid the landing fee, and got ready to take off again.
I took a few pics of Concorde and was then cleared for takeoff, I flew out over Bath and headed down towards Compton-Abbas which is a grass field. I joined overhead there and landed perfectly to start with, but the plane felt like it kind of launched into the air again a few times as it went over 3 bumps in the runway, but as soon as it felt firmly on the ground I hit the brakes, & came to a taxi speed just over halfway down the runway. My instructor who had already been parked for about 15mins said it looked pretty smooth. I parked next to my instructor’s plane, paid my landing fee and then took off with one stage of flap.
I flew down to Exeter, past Yeovilton and when I got to there, I had to circle for ages because there was another plane which had a problem with its landing gear but after about 15 mins I was cleared to land and managed a nice smooth one before going to get some fuel. I parked up, then paid the landing fee, went back out to my plane jumped in, and took off again.
I followed the A38 down to Ivybridge and then headed straight to Plymouth where I landed not too badly, Very very good flight just over 4hrs in the air and about 180 road miles.
It was an incredible day, and I was absolutely exhausted when I got home!