Looking for "first solo" stories

Would have been a cooler story if I had been in that 172. I still don't know who that student was, but I do know the CFI. He's still teaching and I see him around once in a while. The airplane ended up with a lot of bullet holes, it was pretty new, too. Still had that "new airplane smell", and was in the shop for a long time. Probably took a while for repairs and because it was evidence. Last I checked, it was sold and moved to Europe, Denmark maybe?
 
My first solo in an N-numbered aircraft was pretty uneventful save for an unplanned 360 to accommodate another pilot who'd asked if he could get in front of me. My impression was that his request was digestion-related. He also happened to own the flight school; but he didn't know that I was solo, much less first solo, when he asked to get in front of me. If I'm right about the reason for his request, then I doubt it would have made a difference anyway.

The prelude to the solo was a couple of well-done laps around the pattern, followed by the CFI telling me to make three more laps on my own and hopping out. Nothing especially ceremonial. I floated the first landing a bit because the removal of the CFI's weight, even as skinny as the kid was, made a pretty big difference in a Tecnam Sierra. But other than that, I did okay.

The other pilot's request to get in front of me on the third lap might have rattled me had I not already flown ultralights solo. A lot of the first-solo terror associated with wondering if you're going to kill yourself wasn't operative in my case. I was pretty sure I'd survive. So when he asked for priority, it wasn't something that had never happened before. Birds ask to get in front of you when you're flying ultralights. It's not an unusual thing.

I think another reason why I wasn't rattled was because one of my previous CFI's had been an aging alcoholic who'd had a habit of showing up in a state of questionable sobriety and nodding off during dual, so a lot of my dual was effectively solo. He used to lay out the plan for the lesson in advance, so I'd just complete it without him -- right up to landing -- once he passed out. Nothing seemed to stir him. Sometimes I'd deliberately bounce a landing just to shake him up a bit.

He came close to getting me into a mid-air once. A sudden fog had enveloped DXR, and there was a kid flying solo in a Cessna on what he claimed was a short final while I was on downwind. I wanted to extend because I could see the runway and the approach, but I couldn't see the Cessna. The CFI had me turn base anyway because of the fog and because ATC had said the kid was in front of me. Turns out he wasn't. I saw him to starboard just as I turned base.

Fortunately, I was high anyway because I'd wanted to extend. I gave it full throttle and passed over him close enough to see the terror in his eyes. Then I called ATC and got cleared to make a right 270 and come in behind him. The CFI just kind of sat there, dazed, the whole time.

I fired him when we got back on the ground and demanded another CFI. I didn't care if he slept during the lessons, but almost getting me killed was more than I was willing to pay for. The school finally fired him altogether when he flew himself home a few hours after passing out drunk at the FBO Christmas party. A few of us had to pick him up from under the table and carry him to the sofa. A couple of hours later he came to, staggered to his airplane, and flew home. I don't believe I ever saw him again after that.

But I digress. My first solo was uneventful save for a floated landing, an unplanned 360, and a ruined shirt.

Rich
 
I dropped my CFI after my first 3-pt XC solo. When the briefer read the winds I told him I was contemplating cancelling. Knowing I was a student he said I should be fine once I was several miles out and aloft, so I went ahead with it. My CFI told me on the phone to call him at home when I returned to let him know how it went. I was kinda hoping he'd be at the airport to convince me to go another day.

I didn't correct for wind enough in the 150 that I ended up off the runway. Tower said it was windy, did I want to try again, or hang it up?...then cleared me to taxi back to the runway to try again. At 3K I was being bounced around like crazy when the compass fell out. This was in the pre-GPS days. I really thought I was a dead man flying. I truly didn't think I'd live through the flight because I had very little control of the plane. I'd never felt like that before and haven't felt like that since. I buzzed water towers to find my way to the first stop. Surprisingly enough by then the wind had calmed and the landing was fine.

The airport manager was the only one around and greeted me, learned I was a student and helped relax me by plugging quarters into the vending machine and fixed some coffee. We talked a bit and he went over the rest of my flight with me and then walked to the plane with me and talked while I did the pre-flight, assuring me it would be fine, that the winds were gone. He put the compass back into place and it seemed to work.

The rest of the flight was fine but I had no business departing when I did, with the wind like it was in a 150. My next CFI was very, very good.
 
I soloed at MCAS El Toro in 1990, pretty uneventful except the lack of my instructor's weight I was not prepared for, the little C 152 felt like a rocket compared to when we had been flying together. Also noisier as I had been using my instructor's headphones before and now just had ear plugs. Just got in and flew it for a few hops and landed, of course talking to the tower. Took me a lot longer than most, I think 15 hours in 10 days--but made up for it by doing 4 XCs in 4 days and got the ticket in about 40 days and 40-some hours altogether. Landings were difficult for me but XC was a piece of cake!
 
What I ended up reflecting on after my solo was how calm and confident I had felt during it and how it ended up being pretty much a nonevent. On one hand I felt proud of the accomplishment but on the other hand it seemed like no big deal.
 
On my first solo I actually looked in the back of the 152 to make sure I was really alone.

First landing was good, second landing I was over confident and bang it in, third landing I was overly careful and floated a bit but it ended up a smooth landing.

Then I forgot to pick up my instructor and had to turn around to pick her up.
 
OK, I'll tell a straight story (unusual for this bunch :p )

For my first solo I was cleared out ahead of the local museum's Corsair. Did my run-up and took off. The Corsair was still doing his run-ups when I came around for my first T&G. The second time around I was treated to the unusual sight of an airborne Corsair - from above! Third landing was a bit more exciting as a gust of wind caught one wing and lifted it a bit. Corrected, landed and taxied back to the FBO. The only time I recall ever being marshalled into a tie-down space.

That was one of the last times that Corsair flew locally until a multi-year overhaul and upgrade. It's back now, but it was out of town for a long time.
I did see it flying one other time when I was a student pilot, again I was in the air.
 
Zeldman said:
On my first solo I actually looked in the back of the 152 to make sure I was really alone.
Click to expand...

You kinda do have to keep your instructor in the back in a 152... you both won’t fit up front. LOL.

My solo story is boring. Instructor said I was boring him to death which meant it was time for him to get out. “Take me over there and give me your logbook.” He unfolded his 6’ 2” frame from the C-150 and wrote stuff in the logbook on the passenger seat. Said, “Remember it’ll climb better without me. Do three or four then come on inside. If it isn’t working out, go around.” And he walked inside.

Went around the patch a few times, in the days long before any instructors stood around with handheld radios, but there was a unicom radio inside behind the counter at the desk if he even paid any attention to it.

Now that I’m looking at doing this teaching stuff I’m sure he was listening and probably poked his nose back outside and watched, but he was always good at playing nonchalant. To me back then, he just walked inside and I’d see him in a bit. I figured he’d make a cup of tea. It was chilly and he doesn’t like coffee.

Made laps, taxied in, instructor walked out of the door like he’d been inside all the time, and shook my hand at the door to the ancient FBO building, and we sat down on the couch and the assembled airport codgers both congratulated me and continued with some discussion about something they were looking at in Trade-A-Plane sitting on the coffee table.

Felt like I was one of the group right at that point. Sat there in a daze, instructor said he had to run, no shirttail, was chilly out and I think instructor knew I was a broke azz and needed the shirt.

Sat there for another 30 minutes and listened to the codgers talk but wasn’t really registering. Too happy. The codgers knew it was a good day for me and were in rare form around the coffee table that day, but they pretended like nothing special had happened. That’s just how that group rollled back then. Few people came and went and bought gas and talked to the counter person, just business as usual at the tiny airport. (Aurora Airpark)

Can still smell years of airplane smells and coffee in the carpet, see the old counter and desk and leather couch and old coffee table, dark brown walnut trim, and piles of airplane magazines from about an entire year’s worth on the coffee table, anytime I want in my head.

And picture that beat up old Cessna 150 with a strong engine and in bad need of paint and interior and the pull handle to engage the starter.

That airport didn’t survive much longer. It’s a grown over field now. Nothing left. Remnants of the hangars are even mostly gone.

Also remember my grandmother when I got home.

(Long story but I stayed with my grandfolks for a short time after high school because most of my immediate family had left Colorado to pursue a career thing, and dad and I back then weren’t on the greatest terms. That changed a few years later and we were best friends until he passed. But anyway...)

Grandma... “You flew the airplane all by yourself?! Oh my god! Oh I would be so scared!” and grandfather quietly beaming over on the couch but not saying a word.

My grandmother was absolutely terrified of anything to do with airplanes. She only ever got on one in her entire life and it was to come see me when I was born because I was two and a half months early and might not survive. All we could ever get out of grandpa when we asked how that Western Airlines Flight went from Denver to San Diego was an eye roll and a knowing look. He said he should have rented a car to drive home in. Ha.

My grandfolks invited my instructor over more than once for dinner during my training, and he accepted a number of times and they all knew each other. He had to assure my grandmother numerous times that everything we were doing was safe, and he would “edumacate” me. She would believe him for about twenty minutes and then ask him again, “Are you sure? You’re not lying to me now, are you? Oh promise me this is safe!” He would laugh and repeat that it was fine as grandpa and I exchanged eye rolls with each other and with him.

It’s a running joke to this day. She’s been gone a long time, but he still jokes he’s still trying to “edumacate” me to keep his promise made to her almost a quarter century ago.

I’ve wasted a lot of time between then and now, but maybe I’ll get a chance to “edumacate” a late teen and assure a little old grandmother that her grandkid is safe, too. Give back a little. It’d be a true honor. I’d probably have to drive around the block after I left if ever invited to a family dinner like that, and have a little “moment” to myself, really.

Not all that likely nowadays, but if it happens, I’ll go to dinner, as invited. Well, kinda invited. I don’t think my poor instructor was given much of a choice in the matter back then, but I was young and didn’t really know the power grandmothers wield until much later in life. You don’t turn down dinner when grandma says you’re coming to dinner.
 
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