Solo

 

Today was the first time I flew the Baron solo.  It was not my first solo but it was my first multi engine solo.  The routine was not much different than my instruction flights.  I started with a detailed preflight.  It was cool again today and I knew I would want the heater.  It had quit on the last leg yesterday.  I had a good idea why it quit and my pre flight confirmed it.

The heater is in the nose wheel well and if it gets too hot, it pops a safety and shuts off.  You need to press to reset but that's not possible while flying.  During preflight I pressed the magic red reset button and then heater operated correctly for my entire mission today.  I learned my lesson that it is important to have sufficient flow before pulling the heat control to full hot.

We brief the departure in a twin every time.  Some numbers never change, Vr is 85 and Vyse is 100.  The weight changes and expected performance changes so these are good to know so you can determine if things are happening as expected.  The other important brief is "the drill".  The drill is what you need to do if you lose an engine on departure.  It is pretty straightforward, you are checking the configuration and engine controls and if that does not bring the power back, you are feathering the bad or what we call the "dead" engine.

I have done "the drill" a lot lately so why do it before each departure?  The theory is that in an emergency you will sink to the level of your most recent training.  Practicing the process and the muscle memory over and over hopefully means that when you have a bad day, you will revert to what you have practiced again and again and execute it correctly.

Today, it was just for practice and everything worked as intended.  I spent the beginning of my solo time practicing steep turns and working out power settings I will typically use for economy cruising and sightseeing.  It is useful to have some go to settings where you know the engines will be happy and you you know the performance to expect.

After enjoying some sightseeing and just some relaxing flying, I contacted approach and got flight following up to Baxely, GA.  This is really just more training, short cross country flights to different airports to practice with the new to me radios.  I am finding it is really nice to have access to everything on the PFD.  Above I am briefing the arrival frequencies. Basically you can pull up everything about the airport from the charts to the weather without ever turning your head.

After a quick stop in Georgia, I was back in the air and headed for home.  The smooth air had turned choppy.  What I would call consistent light turbulence.  I crossed directly over JAX and then was handed off to tower and joined a left base for 5.  The winds had picked up but we had practiced all this.  I got my second very satisfying touchdown of the day.  A quick taxi back and the plane was back in the hangar.  I still need a few more hours before I can carry passengers but think I will enjoy this phase of training.