![Being ready for your first solo takes a lot more than you might think. [Credit: Shutterstock]](https://flyingmag1.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/shutterstock_1827945362-scaled-1.jpg?width=2560&height=1707)
The post-solo learner came into the school to do some solo flight. It had been a while since he last flew.
The dispatcher made sure his solo endorsement was still valid then asked if he had obtained a weather briefing and filled out the school’s dispatch sheet, which included information about the aircraft performance and what he planned to do during the flight. The solo endorsement at this particular flight school included a line about the pilot agreeing to follow its policy to complete the dispatch form.
The learner replied he had not filled out the form, saying that since he was just planning to stay in the pattern, it was not necessary. The dispatcher replied that without that information, she could not dispatch the aircraft.
The learner was starting to protest when his CFI walked in. The CFI was disappointed to hear the learner was trying to get around the rules and procedures, and wondered if he’d learned them at all in the 23 or so hours they’d been flying together.
Later, the CFI told me that the learner was more interested in being in the air and taking selfies and was reluctant to study. Perhaps he hadn’t really learned the procedures, or he didn’t care, or maybe he forgot them from disuse.
I really hoped it was the latter, as the idea of endorsing someone for solo who doesn’t follow the procedures or rules either because they don’t know them or don’t care is disconcerting to me.
Information Metric
Ideally, by the time the learner is ready for solo, they should be able to gather “all available information” (cFAR 91.103) prior to the flight and be able to identify risks and ways to mitigate them, and know the systems of the aircraft well enough to determine the aircraft performance with the given weather conditions. That’s why there’s an open-book pre-solo test that is specific to the airport where the solo will take place.
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I must stress this because I once had an eager learner who had already logged 20 or so hours at another flight school show up for his first flight with me with a pre-solo test he found online. He had filled it out. Unfortunately, the test was for Tampa, Florida. We were flying out of Boeing Field (KBFI) in Seattle.
Solo students need to have a plan for an alternative if the flight cannot proceed as planned. In essence, in addition to the IMSAFE checklist, a pilot should conduct a self briefing on their plan, which includes an alternate course of action and being prepared before takeoff.
For example, if you plan to fly to an airport 10 minutes away for takeoffs and landings, you would be wise to brief the approach to that airport before you leave the ground.
Instructional Brief Sandwich
The briefing should be part of every dual flight lesson. The CFI should let you know what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, what the performance metrics need to be and common errors and how to fix them, as well as how the maneuver to be learned is applied in the real world. If the instructor rushes through the pre- or post-brief, it tends to send the message that it is not important.
Sadly, sometimes the pre-brief and post-brief are rushed or skipped altogether for economic reasons.
One of my mentor CFIs told a story of working at a flight school that did not pay its instructors for ground time. Therefore, the CFIs did the pre-briefing while strapping into the airplane, and the post-flight was done during the taxi back to the fuel pump at the end of the flight.
The business owner defended the practice of not paying the CFIs for ground time by saying he didn’t make any money from those lessons. As you can imagine, the CFI turnover at this school was significant, and it was the learners who suffered.
Self Pre-Brief
Before heading out on a solo flight, learners need to have a plan.
You don’t just go out and mess around. You’re supposed to be practicing what you’ve been learning—always fly with a plan.
Better yet, have two plans of action. If the weather meets or exceeds the minimum allowed for “the high show” (for example, a 4,000-foot ceiling and 7 miles visibility), such as steep turns and stalls, and the syllabus calls for it, the learner will practice those. If the weather is lower, say a 3,000-foot ceiling, they will practice ground reference maneuvers or stay in the pattern.
Situational awareness, flexibility, and adaptability are key skills for a pilot.
When You Can’t Complete the Flight
Sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, or the aircraft has a mechanical problem that makes the continuation of the flight foolish, perhaps even dangerous.
Part of your personal briefing should be a plan of action in the event the flight cannot be completed as planned. Study potential alternate airports along your route so you have an idea of where you will go if the weather turns sour.
Practice Good Habits
If you don’t use it, you lose it, as the saying goes. Sometimes a pilot gets so used to skipping the briefing, flow, or checklist they begin to view it as busy work and not necessary.
One learner who was ostensibly working on his commercial certificate and on a stage check informed me he was not in the “military or at the airlines” when asked to use the pretakeoff checklist, specifically to provide a takeoff briefing that includes the procedure for what to do in the event of an uncommanded loss of engine power or control anomaly during takeoff or just after liftoff.
I always brief the procedure for power loss on the runway, just off the ground with the runway ahead of you, and out of usable runway at less than 1,000 feet and at 1,000 feet. Every. Single. Time. I have been doing this for decades because I have written far too many stories about pilots who lost power and were either killed or seriously injured during the attempt to return to the runway.
Most recently I wrote about the crash that killed Richard McSpadden, the former Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Institute senior vice president, and Russ Francis, former New England Patriots tight end turned FBO owner. We will never know if they briefed the procedure or if the procedure as briefed was followed, but that accident is firmly in the “It Could Happen to Me” column of my personal risk book.
You may know someone who had an engine power anomaly on takeoff, and because they had briefed the procedure, it became a nonevent. Two of my learners who own airplanes have had this experience, and they handled it like professionals. No damage to them, no damage to the airplanes.
I admit I felt a certain amount of pride when they told me they were glad they had briefed the procedure out loud before they added full power. Learning had taken place.
