Flight# 42

As part of the 10 hour solo requirement, I have to perform 3 take offs and landings to a full stop at a towered airport. To meet this requirement and to work on my communication with air traffic controllers, we headed to the near by towered airport, Lakeland (KLAL). I did all the planning and communication. After reaching there, dropped Bill at the FBO and talked to ground and control tower to make three take offs and landings.

The ground controller had asked me to taxi via Taxiways Bravo and Alpha to Runway 9. I didn't notice the sign for Taxiway Alpha and was going straight to another runway. Oops! The controller must have been watching me with binoculars. He asked me to make a hard stop at the hold short line and make a tight turn to get back on to Taxiway Alpha. I was glad to tell him upfront that I'm a student pilot. Otherwise I would have been in trouble. Luckily they were not busy today. After my third landing, taxied back to the FBO to pick up Bill and we headed back to Winter Haven. We actually planned on going to Lake Wales (KX07) and then to Winter Haven but, we had to cut short our trip since some one else reserved the plane at 5 pm.

Last night one more student, Fabrizio, from Italy joined us. The first five days of my stay here, I was all alone. Now the house is full. More than half the students here are from Europe! They come here to build time as the plane rentals are very expensive in Europe. By the way, Karl had his first solo flight. He already had 40 hours of flight time in Europe. That must have helped him to solo little faster.

The Hobbs time of this flight was 1.5 hours. Cumulative Hobbs time: 47.6 hours.