Remembering your first solo flight

Had a student years ago show up for his lesson w/ a video camera and tripod. I said "what are they for?", and he says "well thought I might solo today", "Oh really" I said. After he did a few landings we taxied to the ramp, and I said to show me how this damn thing works. So filmed him doing his solo.
 
I remember being turned loose. It was in an 85 hp aeronca champ. I flew it a lot for over a year and learned a lot in it. Cross winds, small grass strips, spins, stalls etc. Later I also remember being checked out in the Stearman I bought and flew for three years over and around the chesapeake bay. It was a wonderful experience, lots of fun.
 
My first flight the battery was gone and the 172 wouldn't turn over. My buddies were at the airport watching my first solo flight. They were not leaving till I flew. I got in and they hand propped it and off I went.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
It was way back in 2013 if I am remembering properly.
Back then a gallon of avgas would only set you back five and a half bucks or so.

My instructor taught me out of KGLE. I sometimes wonder if he still has his outfit up there. He's older now. Probably in his mid 20s for sure.

Cessna 172. I can still remember the tail number 7710U.

My kids were little and I had fewer grey hairs.
Just to give this younger generation some perspective on what it was like at that time.
I could rent the plane wet w/ the instructor for $145 an hour.

I am sure nowadays its at least $150 an hour. But these are different times.

Time sure has flown by. I still remember it pretty clearly.
Of course that was back when Go Pros were all the rage so I still have the video which helps the old memory.

What a great day it was.
Click to expand...

So I'm a long time reader, first time poster on this forum, but I gotta say... That. Was. Awesome. No joke, made me laugh out loud. Or LOL, some crap like that.

John
 
My solo was about 11 years ago at KEQY in an OMF Symphony. It was awesome, but I was more nervous because my wife was there.

But I think my first departure from the nest of the pattern to an airport within 25nm was the bigger thrill. I flew to Lancaster, SC, and on climb out the pilot-side door opened. I struggled to try to close it, but then remembered to "Fly the plane!" So it was breezy, but I landed at KLKR uneventfully. It's a sleepy little airport with literally no one to see what I had just done - navigate over the horizon to a different state on my own!
 
My first solo was so great, that I decided to have two more (first solos). :)
 
Instructor had hinted for a couple of flights that it'd happen "soon" but made sure to communicate that we had plenty of other work to do and to just have fun. Which we did anyway.

Airplane was a venerable old 150 with the t-handle starter contact. Thing ran great but looked like hell. And it was cheap.

We "tried" to solo me a couple of times and each time I thought it might happen the winds were howling in swirly crosswinds that kept me busy and the instructor and I would joke that it "just wasn't going to happen" those couple of days. I learned how weather is always a limitation that should never ever be ignored and m instructor back then was the perfect mix of serious and fun to keep me chuckling about it, which continues to this day when the weather goes to utter crap beyond my abilities. Laugh and grab an FBO couch and let's see when it'll get better. It will eventually and there's no particularly good reason to push into bad weather.

Sunny morning at the now long closed Aurora Airpark, and it started like the last couple of flights. Winds doing squirrelly stuff. Around the pattern for a "workout" and then the wind went away.

Instructor says, hey make this one a full stop and I thought the day was over. Quite the contrary after we are clear of the runway he says, "taxi up there and let me out, oh and where the hell is your logbook?" as he's digging in my standard ten pounds of useless crap student flight bag and reaching for his pen.

"Don't taxi too fast. I won't have this filled out by the time we get up there," he jokes. And the lightbulb comes on. Wait... He's getting OUT he said? Ha. Well what do you know...

He plops the logbook in the passenger seat after I shut down and he gets out.

"Got your checklist? Go do three landings and we'll see ya back here in a little bit..." he hints as he closes the door.

I'm both excited as hell and also determined not to screw this up. Grab the checklist and start, taxi out, make all the appropriate radio calls (I'm alone in the pattern. Everyone else had stayed home that day because of those goofy winds I guess.)

Taxi out, do the takeoff and notice the ridiculously better climb performance of a 150 on a cool day without him on board, do the laps, and as I recall all the landings were "satisfactory" but not "perfect" and none bad or scary. Taxi back in.

Find instructor sitting inside the FBO shooting the breeze with the three or four people (remember when people hung around at FBOs) about something they'd found in Trade A Plane... No big fanfare, no shirt cutting. "How'd it go?"

"Pretty good I think..."

Gets a couple of laughs from the assembled crowd. All reach out their hands for a congratulatory shake and my instructor asks for my logbook and the airplane book again and says, "Guess you'd better log it... You get to use a different column on this one..."

I turn in the book and the keys and sit and listen with one ear to the continuing debate over whatever they'd found in TAP. Instructor says he has to run an errand but wants to know if I made any mistakes and how I would correct them. I mumble a couple of things and he says, "Sounds about right! I'll call you later and we will schedule some time to go get cross country stuff done and some ground school stuff we need to cover. Say hi to your grandfolks for me!" and he's off.

I hung around the FBO for another 30-40 minutes or so just soaking in what I had just done and feeling more a part of the assembled group than I had the week before. I didn't try to get involved in whatever the ongoing debate was about either the TAP airplane or the other topics that came up. I knew I wasn't at THAT level yet. Just nice to sit on the couch and be a part of the group of PILOTS shooting the **** and sipping on terrible FBO coffee.

Not long after we had to move to what's now KEIK to rent a Skyhawk. Summer was upon us and the cheap old venerable 150 just wasn't enough airplane to safely take us both aloft in the high DA of summer.

Aurora Airpark closed not too long after that and I still miss the camaraderie and pilots just hanging around being social that place had. Before it closed, and sometime around when we stopped flying there, there was a fatal with two very experienced guys who took an experimental up and decided to do dumb low level aerobatics in it and plastered themselves into the prairie east of the airport at a high rate of speed. Never forgot THAT either. Doesn't matter how experienced you are, don't do stupid things. It will kill you. I think one of the guys was there the day I soloed and amongst those who shook my hand and congratulated me. He was dead not very long after that of his own bad judgement. (Not trying to be mean to his memory, just fact. When you don't make it back to level at the bottom of a loop before the ground rises up to smite thee, you screwed the pooch. Sorry. A big life lesson for a 19 year old going on 20 who saw you do it indirectly -- thankfully not in person -- and decided not to play those games. I'm sure it was fun right up until about the last 20 seconds of his life.)

Always remember that day, but it's not the traditional shirt cutting or anything like that. Just a flight where I got to walk in and hand the keys to the counter guy who had a big grin on his face and a congratulatory welcome, instructor looking pretty proud but not overly so, and an unstated invitationt to grab a cup of coffee and join the pilots on the couch.

Good times. Much simpler times too.

Wasn't hardly any instruments worth a darn in the panel of that 150, and it ran great but had seen a lot of better days prior to my time in it. Old thing flew great and true, wasn't out of rig, and nothing broken or deferred. Didn't really need anything other than the ASI and probably could've survived the pattern without it. Just felt totally normal and a lot easier than the preceding lessons that were such a workout in crosswinds that I would climb out exhausted and sweaty and my instructor would be grinning and asking, "Quite a workout today, eh?" In comparison, solo day was a cakewalk. Light wind right down the runway, airplane flew great, and I'd had my butt kicked so hard for the previous couple of flights that I almost wondered what the big deal was about solo with nothing blowing me to Kansas on the crosswind.

An old comfortable couch and a copy of a well perused copy of TAP covering half of the coffee table in front of it, is a solidified memory that whenever I see similar at an FBO, always brings a smile to my face. Reminders of a very good day.
 
Like many others I had two soloes. My first was in '85 when I was a young, cocky 23 year old kid. I was in the Air Force stationed at Kadena Air Base in the Aero Club's 152. (N95925 which is now flying in Australia under their registration) My instructor was a full bird Colonel who was the base's orthodontist - nice guy. I remember after flying in the pattern for what seemed like a lifetime in an hour I looked over and told him that he was expensive company. ($12 an hour for the instructor $40 wet for the airplane, wish it were true today) He replied, "Oh yeah, well exit the runway and pull to the base of the tower." I remember I had 8.7 hours at the time. "Go out and give me three stop and go landings just like you have been." I taxied out, got clearance and it really didn't hit me that I was alone until I was downwind midfield. I was happy and nervous at the same time knowing that I was solely responsible to not bend the airplane.

My instructor had gone up into the tower to watch which was a pretty good walk from the parking area. I finished my solo landings and taxied back to the parking area. He came walking up after I had finished refueling and tying it down and it hit me that he probably would have appreciated a ride back but he never said a word. He just shook my hand and we walked back to the Aero Club together. He cut the tail of my shirt (It was an REO Speedwagon concert tee with 3/4 sleeves) signed it and hung it on the bulletin board so the other club members could see it.

After that we flew together another 10 hours and then I got transferred back to the states. I forgot to get my shirt tail from that bulletin board; I still regret that.

When I got back to the states I never flew after that because I got interested in other things, got married, had kids...yada, yada. Fast forward to last spring. I was working an airshow with a kid I work with who was getting his CFI. I told him that if he got his CFI, I would be his first student. When I found out how much the plane rental and instructor would be ($135 + $50 for the instructor) I decided that I would buy my own plane and pay him $20 an hour because it seemed to be a lot cheaper in the long run. (His request was for $15 an hour which was what he was getting at the school, what they did with the other $35 is a mystery) So I bought a 1970 Cherokee 140 and off we went. I had close to 10 hours when he told me to pull off on a taxiway. I gave him my hand-held radio so he could listen and I went and did my three take off and landings. I was as happy as the first time if not more so because now this was MY plane. Afterwards, he cut my shirt tail which happened to be one of my company tee shirts (I own a small woodworking business...okay I'm the only employee but I have a business license) which I plan on framing and hanging up in the hangar someday.

I still need to do that.
 
This stuff is fun to read...Great stories!

I grew up as the 'son of a Beech' salesman and antique airplane restorer, so I was always working on something old and fabric covered- learned a lot about dope...

Approaching my 16th birthday, all I could think about was soloing then, but there was nothing Dad had that was appropriate for 8 hours of dual and solo flying (in his and Mom's estimation anyway- But Why Not in the 185 hp Monocoupe??) and the Luscombe basket case/wreck I was starting on was nowhere near flying status. So it was decided that I'd just use the company Mousketeers and a staff CFI. Dad had no desire to work with me on a formal basis because all we'd do is argue...or at least disagree about stuff (yes, I knew it all at 15 years old and had been flying sailplanes over at Strawberry Hill, after all).

On my birthday, it was expected that I'd solo. So after going back over the basics with CFI Paul, we taxied back to the ramp at GSO where my family was waiting. It was late in the day so most of the guys at the FBO had left work- kept the audience down, thankfully. I had been there in the past when a couple of others had soloed, and the line crew and A&P's were kinda like Olympic judges- "5-9; 5-8; 5-7; 5-8..." etc.

Paul signed the log, hopped out after reminding me it was 3 full stops, then return to the ramp. Sure thing! Like all the rest of you, that 150hp Mouseketeer sure flew better without him. Off I went, thrilled inside but trying to act sober and responsible with the task at hand- the radio was no problem for me, and the tower cleared me as usual. The first two landings & takeoffs were uneventful, but after the third, tower advised a Beech 18 was inbound nordo and squawking emergency, so they asked me to extend downwind while they worked him. No problemo and I'll stay on frequency til called. I puttered along holding heading, motoring over Greensboro eastbound as the sun began to get close to the horizon behind me. I figured I'd get called any moment, but now lights started popping on down below as I neared Burlington. Just then ATC called apologizing that they had me out there so far and that I needed to reverse course. I thought you guys had forgotten about me, I said. The controller (one I didn't know) told me that my dad had just come up to the tower to find out just WTH they were doing with me and it was getting dark and did they know they had a stupident on his first solo out there! So I fired up the nav lites and back I came, landed ok, taxied to the ramp, got my shirttail removed (it was a relief- I was really sweating a lot- more than I realized, and that rush of cool air on my back was sure nice- it was Mid-June) almost getting to log night flight in addition to solo.

Now my next challenge was getting past my driver's license test so Mom wouldn't have to take me to the airport to fly...but that wouldn't come for another couple of weeks- after all, I wuz a pilot now!

I enjoyed thinking about this event again and reliving it to an extent. Thanks for asking.
 
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