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As a request from a member of the VATPAC (VATSIM Pacific) Forum, I have been asked to drop the following story in here for your enjoyment! I hope you enjoy reading it, more than I enjoyed experiencing it! Well, it's high time I shared some wisdom from my 100hrs of flight time! After many months of weekends spent at Cessnock Aerodrome (YCNK) with Hunter Valley Aviation (Basair), it finally came time for me to do solo circuits! As any pilot will tell you, your first solo circuit is the most cereal experience you will ever have flying. Firstly, because your Instructor has taken enough Vallium to sign you out to do a circuit with out him/her sitting next to you to grab the controls on late finals, and Secondly, because as the Instructor gets out of the aircraft (possibly popping a few more Vallium) it hits you, your totally in control.. On the morning of my first solo circuit, things were conducted as normal, Pre-Flight Brief, examination of the weather and how conditions will affect any points in the circuit, and finally, Pre-Flight inspection and taxi. We went up and did a few circuits with a light crosswind, nothing more than about three to five knots. after forty five minutes, I was instructed to conduct a full-stop landing and taxi clear via the third taxiway. The instructor gave me a five second prep talk and a pat on the shoulder with one of those "you'll do fine" looks. So with the instructor out of the aircraft, I nervously proceeded to taxi to the run-up bays. I will tell you now, I'm sure I spent at least ten minutes doing my run ups in the poor little Cessna 152. Finally, I taxied to the holding point of Runway 35. I did my look out, made the radio call and lined up.. Once line up and checks were completed, I looked out along the runway and taxiways again, just to make sure everything was right.. I slowly inched the throttle on, and started to bounce forward down the runway.. "First Gabble, IAS rising, Centre Line on the nose".. Then... Out of the drainage ditch on the side of the runway, the one place where I couldn't see anything, let alone look to see anything, jumps Skippy... A five foot Eastern Grey Kangaroo.. And guess where Skippy was hopping.. Yeh, that's right, straight out onto the runway, 30 - 50 metres ahead of my quickly accelerating aircraft! At this point, what do I do? I had only a matter of seconds before I had Skippy in the cockpit with me.. So I did the only thing I could have done, pull!! At 40kts I pulled the control column back as hard as I could, and began to rotate.. Now, as any experienced pilot, or even someone who has passed their Training Area Solo will tell you, low level stall equals a whole world of hell. So rotating at 40kts in my little Cessna with very little to no Short Field experience meant I was in a whole world of hurt. That, and at 40kts, I needed to pray for enough lift to clear Skippy.. What happened?.. Well, the little Cessna sluggishly pulled free of the ground and very slowly, with the stall warning blaring, began to climb. To this day, I have no idea how the hell I did not stall and smack straight back down to earth, but I cleared the Roo, and as I did, I placed the nose inches back down and slowly put back on the speed. I continued to climb on Upwind, turned Crosswind, and then Downwind.. On Downwind, I had a miniature fit over what had just happened before pulling myself together enough to realise, "Hey, I still need to land this thing!!" I made a radio call, and requested to the other aircraft in the circuit (one of our Kiwi Instructors) if the runway was clear of an Animal Hazard. As I would find out after the flight, he saw the whole thing from the holding point, and he apparently had found the funny side.. He found enough words between fits of laughter on the radio to tell me the runway was clear. So, I turned base (well after I should have) and finally, Finals.. I was out on very long Finals. Anyone familiar with Cessnock will tell you that if your on approach to Runway 35 from the south side of the Prison, you are way way too far out! But still I plodded along, and rather gingerly landed between the numbers and the second taxiway. I taxied clear, and back into the parking, tied down the aircraft, and went in for my debrief. The instructor was sitting in the Office with my normal Instructor, and the Kiwi Instructor. They all looked up, and smirked.. It was then the Kiwi Instructor said "If you want to be a Pilot, it's best not to kill your future employers mascot on your first solo!" We all sat in on the debrief where I was told that I had only cleared the Roo by a few feet, but had managed to scare the thing stupid. Apparently as I flew over it, it had tried to spin around to get out of the way, but ended up tripping itself over. I asked what I should have done in that situation. The response, "wear two pairs of underwear next time!" Since then I have gone on to complete all my Solo Circuit Checks, my Training Area Solo, GFPT, NaxEx's and now next week, I finally sit my PPL Flight Test. I've been praying that Skippy and I stick to our now mutual arrangement that, as long as he stays of the Runway, I won't scare him, or myself for that matter, half to death!! It's been a long road with many fun stories, and embarrassingly learned lessons.. But with the great team at Hunter Valley Aviation, I'm looking forward to now moving on to NVFR, IFR, MEICR, and CPL to eventually fly for Virgin Australia (Yes, not Qantas... Bloody Kangaroo's! ) Regards,
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