Today the weather between here and Gulfport, MS was finally clear enough for me to go on my first solo cross-country flight, from Hammond to Gulfport and back, a round-trip distance of 142 nautical miles. And look at that! I managed to stay alive. That was my primary objective for the day, and I'm glad I managed to achieve it.

The flight was surprisingly uneventful too. I only made one real mistake, and it was relatively minor: when New Orleans Departure handed me off to Gulfport Approach, I was supposed to first listen to Gulfport's ATIS (automated airport information broadcast, including things like weather and runway closures) before contacting Gulfport Approach, and I forgot to. Fortunately, my plane, like most, has two radios, so I was able to tune Gulfport's ATIS on the second radio and listen to it while waiting for Gulfport Approach to finish dealing with other airplanes and get back to me on the primary radio.

The landing at Gulfport was interesting. They've got two runways, a large 9000-foot runway typically used for airline traffic, and a smaller 5000-foot runway where they usually send the smaller planes. When I first spoke to Gulfport Approach I was told to expect to land at the smaller runway, but when I got close to the airport the tower told me to land on the big 9000-foot runway (which is way excessive, since under normal circumstances a Piper Warrior like I was flying only needs about 700 feet from the touchdown point to come to a full stop). It's not my first time landing on a huge runway, but this time they advised me that, because the intermediate taxiways were closed, I'd be getting off at the very end of the runway. I guess maybe they were hoping I'd land closer to the end, but since my landings aren't yet quite precise enough to be able to set it down exactly where I want, I went ahead and did a normal landing at the beginning of the runway (and a pretty nice one, if I do say so myself — I touched down right past the numbers).

But that precision ended up working against me. Seconds after my wheels touched down, Tower called and told me that I had a 737 coming in for a landing just a few miles behind me, and that I should "clear runway with no delay." Which basically meant that I had to taxi down the entire two mile runway as quickly as possible. Normally you're taught to taxi at a speed no faster than a brisk walk, but looking behind you and seeing a 737 coming in for a landing on the runway you're still sitting on is pretty good motivation to reconsider suggestions like that. I kept it rolling down the runway at about 40 knots, being careful to stay below the speed at which my wings would start generating lift again. As I turned off the runway at the end, I looked back and saw the 737 just touching down. Well, that was exciting.

I taxied to the FBO, went inside and closed my flight plan, called Mike back in Hammond to tell him how it went, and enjoyed some of their iced tea and cookies. I checked the weather to be sure nothing had changed significantly since I left, then filed a new flight plan and headed back out to the plane to fly home (but not before taking a few pictures).

The flight home was straightforward, and I have no exciting "chased by airliner" stories to report for the return leg. At times, I actually found myself without anything to do, just waiting to reach the next checkpoint. During those times I was happy that my headset has an input for an MP3 player, but I discovered one little quirk in its operation. As I mentioned the other day, the headset automatically mutes the music any time it detects that radio communication is taking place, which is very convenient and good for safety. But apparently, the automatic muting function will also be triggered by you talking into your own mic (which makes sense, in case you want to talk to someone else in the plane, etc). And so every time I absentmindedly started to sing along to the music, the headset would helpfully mute the music and leave me singing to myself. Thanks, headset.

As I was navigating, I didn't shy away from using the GPS to tell me my distances from various landmarks when reporting my position to ATC, but I purposely referenced it as little as possible other than that. I made sure to use the more traditional VOR beacons as my primary means of navigation, only glancing at the GPS occasionally to confirm that I was in fact going where I thought I was. It feels great to know that I have the ability to manipulate an airplane to make it actually go somewhere, and navigate all the way there and back successfully.

I've just about completed all of the requirements for my license other than the 40 hours of experience needed — I still have to do a long solo cross-country flight (consisting of at least three stops and a total distance of over 150 nautical miles), and another hour and a half of training in flying by instruments. Once those are done, I believe I'll have met all of the specified requirements besides the minimum flight experience, so at that point I'll just start spending time working on improving the precision of my flying, to be sure I can perform all of the required maneuvers within the specified error tolerance (such as maintaining an altitude ±100 feet, or maintaining an approach speed +10/-5 knots, or touching down within 200 feet of a specified point on landing).

I've got 25.5 hours at this point, and I'll probably find myself at around 30 hours when I finish those two remaining requirements above, leaving me a good 10 hours to work on refining my proficiency. I may actually be able to take the practical test at 40 hours after all. We'll see how things go.