I guess this post jumps right over the phase check. Last Friday I went up with another instructor and did a phase check to make sure I was safe for solo. We went through some maneuvers and landings. I was fairly nervous being with someone new, so things could have gone better. Despite my mediocre performance for the lesson, he signed off and gave me an ok for solo. I passed the "safe part" at least.
Now fast forward to today:
I woke up this morning only to see overcast skies and heavy fog. Visibility was less than a mile and things did not look hopeful until an hour after my scheduled time of 10 am. We waited and finally got a break in the clouds. If things went well I would solo...maybe. I unpacked my camera, mount, and audio cable. I turned the camera on and to my surprise the battery indicator was flashing. I was sure that I had charged it. I had a spare battery and was hopeful, so I attached it and it indicated that it had 57 minutes so I turned it off to save battery life until solo time. I also brought a smaller camera for my instructor to use on the ground if I had the chance to solo. When we took off we had some strong gusts so we climbed to 3000 to avoid the remaining clouds. Things were breaking up at this point so it was easy to get around. It was a lot smoother once we got higher so we did some slow flight and stalls. After that we started the descent and worked on some landings and got some crosswind practice. It took me a couple of times to compensate for the wind drift and at this point I knew that I was not going to solo today. What a bummer, but everything happens for a reason. We did not get an ounce of video and no solo. We will try again during the week. :-(
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