Solo flying as a student pilot is a breathtaking moment.

Usually after the first solo flight and being signed off to fly solo by the instructor, student pilots always stay at their home airport, doing some pattern flying to practice more touch and go. Obviously, you won’t just fly to another airport or fly away like a pro.

On my second solo flight, just like other new student pilots I was staying at my airport doing some pattern flying. The first pattern flight was fine and uneventful. On my second round, I remembered right before I took off again, I asked for wind check and the tower replied “wind 250 at 5kts” and my runway was RWY 26, meaning the direction of the runway was almost a straight headwind. I felt calm knowing I had a headwind that was not too strong.

Soon I took off and almost reached 1000 feet (the pattern altitude). Turning from crosswind to downwind, I encountered a lot of turbulence and the plane was bouncing all over. My heart was beating so fast and I kept telling myself “fly the plane please fly the plane please”. At the same time I called the tower and asked for wind check (I was sure they could hear my scared voice when I keyed the mic). “Wind 310 at 15Kts”, tower answered. When I was downwind, I felt the plane being pushed so fast that I started to turn base and final. I also felt the plane sinking.

The procedure of flying the pattern is once you are base to final pilot should add 20 degree of flaps, speed should be around 65kts, and power should be around 1500-1700 RPM. At that moment my speed was little below 60kts and I had 20 degree of flaps already. I felt the plane was sinking so fast and I had to add a lot of power (almost 2100 RPM). The plane was still sinking (but thankfully not too much), and I added almost full power. My speed was dropping from 57kts to around 54kts. I reached the runway threshold below 50kts, very close to stall speed (around 42kts for cessna 152).

But I made it with almost full power and landed without incident. Good thing I didn’t add any more flaps, otherwise the plane would sink even faster and speed would be a lot slower. I taxied back to the school and was so shaken. I explained to my flight instructor what happened, and she said I just encountered windshear. But she said I handled it really well by adding full power to compensate for the sink rate, and I didn’t add more flaps and kept flying the airplane despite the fears I had.

The lesson I learned was that I should be more calm and acted a lot sooner. I should have added power as soon as I felt the plane was sinking. As I gained more experience of flying, I can always predict how the plane is going to act, and my brain already knows what to do. For example, when you are on approach path, you add power before the airplane starts to fall below the glide path. Especially when flying instrument approaches, your brain has to always think ahead of your airplane.

I hope this will help student pilot to understand that weather can change so quickly before you know it! But even when you’re in a scary situation, don’t give up and keep flying!