After way too many attempts, I finally was able to fly my first solo cross-country flight. The flight was basically the same route that I did for my second cross-country flight with Willis — Bloomington to Mattoon, IL to Lawrenceville, IL back to Bloomington. The only major difference is that I wouldn’t be making an approach at Terre Haute to practice instruments. Figuring out winds aloft was going to be a bit tricky, as they were all over the place in the winds aloft prediction charts and rapidly changing throughout the day. Since I was going to be using VOR and GPS navigation for most of the flight (using the charts to ensure I knew where I was in case of instrument failure), it wasn’t a huge deal. But it meant that I was going to be guessing a little bit about how fast I would be going. Of course, these days there’s a GPS to give you accurate ground speeds, so that isn’t too big of a deal either. An almost complete route is below. I forgot to turn my handheld GPS on while preparing to depart at Lawrenceville (the handheld is basically backup for complete airplane power failure and (mostly) to make pretty pictures when I get back. Primary GPS navigation is from the unit mounted in the airplane).

Takeoff from BMG was uneventful. Just enough traffic to make me happy BMG has a tower to sort everything out, but not enough to cause any major delays. I initially planned on cruising to Mattoon at 3000′ MSL, low enough to avoid the assigned altitude restrictions and (hopefully) avoid some of the winds aloft. However, turbulence was moderate from about 2800′ to 3500′ and I didn’t want a bumpy ride the whole time. I climbed to 4500′ and found perfectly smooth air. Winds were a bit stronger than I hoped, but I still made reasonable time out to Mattoon. Mattoon had a couple people in the traffic pattern, so the choice of runway was easy. My timing was almost perfect and I was able to fit right in between traffic that was doing pattern work. Made a fairly good landing in Mattoon and taxied over to get my logbook signed (on solo cross-countries, students must get signatures that they went somewhere). Thought about stopping for lunch at the restaurant on the airport, but wanted to do some pattern work when I was done with the cross-country flight, so decided to press on. Before I departed, two planes clearly flying together departed from a different runway (there was no wind, so while everyone was landing on 11, people seemed to be taking off in the direction they were heading). No biggie – everyone was talking on the radio and no chaos was apparent. Anyway, after I departed, one of them called back saying they had a fuel leak and needed assistance. They got down ok, but the fire department was called out. Kinda glad I took off *before* they reported the problem.

Flight from Mattoon to Lawrenceville was uneventful, although I again had trouble finding smooth air. I was hoping to fly the leg at 3500′, but ended up having to climb to 5500′, which is a bit of a hike for a Cessna 150, especially when the leg is only 50 NM long! There was absolutely no one in the traffic pattern (or anywhere near the airport) when I was within 15 NM, which is unusual for KLWV — even at 10:00pm last night there were people in the traffic pattern. There was no defined runway in use (KLWV is not towered) as winds were variable at under 5 knots and UNICOM didn’t seem to care which runway was used. With little course change, I could make a direct approach to runway 18, so I decided to do that. Flying a final approach without a traffic pattern is always interesting because you don’t have the pattern references for setting up, so you kind of have to guess how far out you are and extrapolate that into what configuration you should have the plane in at that time. I like practicing them because it’s more of a challenge than flying a pattern and being able to land on a direct approach can save oodles of time if the winds are favorable to it. I made a nice approach and landing on 18, although I floated it just a tiny bit on flare.

Finally caught some calm air at 3500′ on the final leg of my journey, so I didn’t have to climb to 5500′ for the leg back to Bloomington. The traffic pattern at Bloomington was nuts, as there were a bunch of planes and the winds were strong enough that the light planes wanted to land on 24 and the heavier birds wanted to land on 35. I ended up flying an interesting turn onto downwind, which was extended out a ways for a landing on 35 (my favorite runway….). Made a reasonably decent cross-wind landing, but nothing to write home about. On the other hand, I was back in Bloomington and the plane still worked, so it was a successful cross-country flight.

The winds were light enough that any of the runways were usable and it was a beautiful day out, so I did 3 more landings at BMG to work on my short and soft field approaches. I tried to make the first one an approach on 24, which turned out ok, but it’s hard to do a decent short field touch and go due to the obstructions at the end of the takeoff end of 24 — leaving with flaps down much isn’t an option, so if you float any, you can’t take off without taxing back. Did a short field and soft field landing on 35 after that. The short field I hit pretty much spot on, which was nice because I normally don’t do well with any cross-wind and flaps down all the way. Made a nice adjustment at the end and hit the runway pretty close to where I wanted. Still need to work on power control for those landings so that I don’t float as much (I don’t float much on short fields, but I need to not float at all). The soft fields didn’t go as well. I kept the nose up after landing (good) but floated both of them too much. Something to work on with Willis during the simulated checkride (whenever that is).

All that is left before I’m ready for my FAA checkride is a second cross-country flight (at least 2.1 hours long) and a practice check ride or two (which must include at least .5 hours of simulated instrument flying). Getting closer!