Solo 3

Today I flew my first solo cross-country flight. I went from Fort Meade (KFME) to Salisbury (KSBY). It was a cold, clear day with light winds when I took off. But first I had to deal with the fact that the AWOS at FME was out of service. I wasn't sure whether I was doing something wrong when I didn't hear the AWOS, so I shut the engine down and asked for help. We tried a different airplane and concluded that the AWOS was off because of a power outage the previous day and no one was around to get it going again. The instructor advised me to tune to BWI for the local wind and altimeter settings.

I took off and proceeded on course. It was a little bumpy at times, and I had a tendency to drift off course. But I found my landmarks easily and spotted SBY at least 20 miles out. I checked in with the tower, entered the pattern, and got clearance to land. The wind was stronger than I expected from the forecast and it turned into a challenging landing. Not the hardest I've done, never out of control or scary, but challenging to keep it on center line. I touched down and easily made the first turnoff.

I asked the tower to do a few trips around the pattern and the controller agreed. When he cleared me for the first takeoff he reported much stronger winds and gusts than I expected, stronger than reported on the ASOS, so I decided to simply return to FME. On climbout I advised the controller that I was cancelling my landing intentions and he cleared me to proceed on course.

I had no trouble navigating back to FME. I had to tune BWI ATIS to get the wind and altimeter info. I spotted the field, reported to ATC, switch frequencies, entered the pattern, and landed.

All in all, it was pretty uneventful.