Seat engaged and wind force taken into account?

When you've been flying for 27 years as a PPL license holder, you naturally experience one thing or another. However, two experiences from my time as a student pilot have left their mark on me to this day.

My very first lesson was as a student pilot on a solo navigation flight in a Cessna 152. Everything looked good when I flew from Triengen to western Switzerland in the afternoon: calm weather, good visibility, everything was in the green zone. The landing in Neuchâtel also went smoothly and I allowed myself a short break.

As a conscientious student pilot, I naturally gave the Cessna a thorough inspection before the return flight. Everything looked fine and I taxied to the runway. But when I gave full throttle during take-off, my seat suddenly slid backwards. I was able to abort the take-off immediately, but I was shocked and have never failed to check that the seat was locked in place ever since.

What had happened? On the Cessna 152, you always have to move the seat backwards to get in and out. After boarding, I moved the seat forward to my usual position as usual, and apparently the pin did not engage properly in the perforated bar. When accelerating, it then slid backwards over the entire perforated strip so that I could no longer reach the pedals.

Underestimated influence of wind

Shortly after successfully passing the test, I flew back from Geneva to Triengen in the same plane with a low cloud base. Between Lausanne and Yverdon, I finally lost my bearings after this leg had taken much longer than I had calculated in my flight plan due to the strong breeze. There were only green meadows everywhere and I had no idea where I was. I felt that Yverdon should have been in sight by now.

Geneva Information didn't see me on the radar. Apparently the radar coverage in this area was inadequate when you have to fly so low, and I didn't have a GPS at the time. I was then enormously relieved when I could finally see Lake Neuchâtel. The rest of the flight was still very low, but thanks to the lakes and later the A1 highway, I found my way back to Triengen without any problems. The next day I bought my first GPS device with a rudimentary moving map, which was very expensive at the time. The lesson I learned back then was to take the influence of wind into account when planning a flight and to use the advantages of electronic devices, even though we primarily navigated using the map at the time.