First Private Pilot Student Solo

Who is more nervous? That is my question, am I more nervous or is my student more nervous? I start to think back to when I had my first solo flight. I remember a small bit of excitement as my instructor jumped out and said "be safe" but that was about it. As I taxied out it was all business as usual, going through checklists, checking all my instruments, carefully listening to my headset hoping I don't miss any radio calls. It never really hit me until I brought full power in and felt like the airplane had a rocket attached to it, however this feeling quickly disappeared as I noticed the airspeed coming up and realized I had to worry about flying the airplane. I remember having the biggest sense of pride as I looked to my right and saw no one sitting next to me on my first trip around the pattern.

Back to my question though, who is more nervous right now? As I jump out of the airplane I say my final words, be safe, and then lock the door. As I start my walk to the tower to watch I start thinking about the previous training that we've done I start to wonder have I done enough? Have we covered everything, what if there is an unexpected emergency, what about wind shear? Sure I would never sign off a student who I didn't feel comfortable with, or a student who didn't feel comfortable in his ability. But still the questions keep coming, what about endorsements? Did I give all the appropriate endorsements, did I write them correctly? I sure hope so!

As I watch from the tower and listen to my student talk to tower with only a few hiccups I begin to feel some of my nervousness turn into a sense of pride! He is doing a great job, his landings look real good, I actually wish that I was on board and could feel the wheels kissing the pavement. Three landings later I'm on my way out of the tower to meet my student in the lobby and I have a huge smile on my face, I can only imagine the sense of pride and enthusiasm that my student is going to have when he finally shuts the engine off. The only person in the lobby with a bigger smile on his face is the pilot who just had his first solo!

Push it forward....

"Alright lets start our turn to final. Nice, good turn, watch that bank. Okay we overshot a little bit lets just work our way back to centerline nice and easy now. Good job, back on centerline. Okay, we are a little bit high, lower the nose. Still high lower the nose. Keep it coming down, lower the nose a little bit. Watch your airspeed, getting a little slow, no don't pull it back push it forward....push it forward. Okay good back on glide slope, good job.....getting a little high, push it forward, forward, forward. Alright good, start your roundout, nice, hold that flare, hold it off. Good, brakes."

An interesting thing that I've noticed flying with pilots who have zero time or even very little time is their tendency to want to stay up in the air and not aim the airplane at the ground. It actually takes some forcing the student to do it until they get used to pointing the nose of the aircraft at the ground when your only a few hundred feet off the ground.

This got me to thinking, in an emergency such as an engine failure, as trained pilots we try and stay in the air as long as possible. Get to best glide speed and stay up as long as possible trying to exhaust all possible options and restart the engine. Is this a natural human tendency or is it just a little bit of fear the first few times?

next to come...scariest moment?