Felopilot's Aviation Blog

The day before I had been practicing touch and go’s like crazy, struggling with the wind gusts and trying to put a permanent smile on my CFI’s face. After the flight ended and my logbook was filled, I was anxiously waiting for the magic words come out of his mouth. He had thrown a few hints previously during the week, but he had never actually mentioned it to me, but then… He said it: “I will book you a slot for tomorrow at 6:00 am (the first flight of the day) so that there’s no wind, we’ll do some takeoffs and landings, if you do well, I’ll get out and you will fly solo for the first time”.

Yes, on december 24th, 2008 I flew by myself for the first time. It took place in our usual practice airfield, the Calzada Larga aerodrome (CLZ), and the aircraft was the late HP1518 TC, a Cessna 152 (RIP). As planned, we went to the airfield to do some takeoffs and landings, I remember we did about four, and then he got out of the plane. I gave him my camera and he wished me luck. I called on the radio and advised my intentions of getting into the active runway for takeoff, it was runway 36. I quickly checked that everything was in their proper places, flaps, mixture, landing lights and gauges, I made the take off call and advanced the throttles to full power, and before I knew it, I was rotating the aircraft for the first time with nobody on the right seat. It turned crosswind while making the radio call, then downwind and then final. The first landing was far from good, I balooned like crazy. Then I remembered he had told me that I had to keep in mind that because of the reduced weight caused by him not being on the aircraft as usual (206 lbs) the aircraft was going to feel much lighter so I had to be careful and precise when flaring. The second landing was much better, although I landed a little long down the runway and the third was fine. It was such a thrill and excitement that I completely neglected some of the basic stuff you are supposed to do. I can’t remember all of them, but a couple that come to mind are that when applying full power y realized that the flaps were still down, so I quickly pulled the power out and retracted the flaps immediately while the aircraft was rolling by inertia down the runway, luckily it was a long runway in relation to the C-152. The other one is that there was another student from another school soloing for the first time too, I felt happy that I wasn’t alone in that sense, that I started talking to him like we were best friends on CTAF while keeping my attention away from the cockpit. After it was over, I picked my instructor up, and we flew back to the airport where our school at the time was located, Marcos A. Gelabert (MPMG). Overall, it was a great flight and my greatest accomplishment in 2008.

The proud man that signed my logbook and my student pilot’s certificate stating that I was ready to fly an aircraft by myself was CFI Alex Bosquez. He was my mentor, the man that taught me how to fly. He died 5 days later during an instruction flight with a student in HP1518TC , yes the same aircraft I soled in. He crashed in lake Alajuela, next to CLZ, yes then same airfield where I soloed. I still don’t know the cause of the crash, but witnesses said they saw the aircraft in a spiral, so we assume he somehow got into a spin at low altitude. I still think about him, and I’m sure he is proud of me, his students and colleagues from wherever he is.

Siempre te recordaremos Capt. Bosquez, RIP.