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First Flight... the pilot. Where did you solo.

This is kind of a fun thread - maybe should be moved out of temp? [ed. Done. Thanks for the heads up Alex! v/r,dr]
 
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Was your instructor Richard Ensign? He used to instruct at Hemet, and gave me instruction at Slylark (Elsinore) where I used to tow and give orientation flights for the club.

-Marc

I spent most of my time with Dean Hildreth.
 
First solo was 3 Oct 1969 at Keesler AFB aero club, Capt. R.L. Sutton was my instructor.
Every Friday I would give blood to the bank near the main gate and receive $15, this paid for 1 hour of flight. $10 for the plane and $5 for the instructor.
 
My first solo was in 1970 at the West Chester PA airport (N99), now known as Brandywine (OQN). At that time it was 2400 ft turf with a 35 ft obstacle. Soloed in a C-150G and then a Citabria 7ECA same day. I started flying at 14 while working line crew.

Soloed glider 2-33 same airport later in the year.

Long ago...
 
My first solo was also at KLGB in August of 1988. I learned at Eagle Aviation.

We own a hangar at Eagle Aviation, but Colleen closed the flight school some years ago. I heard she passed a couple of years ago.

-Marc
 
Started in May 0f 1970 during High School. Soloed 9/6/70 KOAK 27L Cessna 150

N8424J. All in all had a great 36 year airline career. Now flying a Citation XLS+

and my RV7. I'm enjoying this thread about everybody's experience.
 
Soloed and got my private license in March, 1972 at Plainwell, Mich. East/west 2500? paved runway. There is also a grass north/south runway that intersects the paved one, and that is the one I soloed on - in a Cessna 150. I also had a great airline career, followed by 10 years of corporate flying. Now, fully retired I enjoy flying my light, fun RV4 several times a week.
 
Here is my story

First solo was 3 Oct 1969 at Keesler AFB aero club, Capt. R.L. Sutton was my instructor.
Every Friday I would give blood to the bank near the main gate and receive $15, this paid for 1 hour of flight. $10 for the plane and $5 for the instructor.

My first flight lesson was also out of Keesler AFB in Sept 1975, and that Cessna 150 was $11.50 per hour, and $6.30 for the instructor which was this retired AF pilot.

My last take off and landing that I made, do to Corona-19 was as a captain in an Airbus 320 into and out of Keesler AFB in April. Bringing in “Pingers” from Lackland AFB to start tech school. They normally brought them by buses, but if they drove through the state of Louisiana, they would have to put them into quarantine for 14 days, and that was not going to work as they needed them to start tech school the next day. Back to Bus flying next month.

I did my first solo at Gulfport airport just west of Keesler AFB. Many, many years later, when I was a MD-11 captain, I flew into there on a charter, which brought back memories of my first solo.

Finished up all my primary ratings in Delaware, out of a 2000’ grass strip with trees on one end and power lines on the other end, which is now under a Wal-Mart. Did a flight out of there 10 years after I left Delaware, and all I was thinking was, boy is this runway “short”

In the early 80’s I flew into and out of Meadowlark airport a few times, as I was flying helicopters at that time and runway length was never a problem. LOL

45 years and 22,000 hours later, they are all good memories.

Brian
 
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First solo was 3 Oct 1969 at Keesler AFB aero club, Capt. R.L. Sutton was my instructor.
Every Friday I would give blood to the bank near the main gate and receive $15, this paid for 1 hour of flight. $10 for the plane and $5 for the instructor.

You gave blood every week? These days you aren't supposed to fly (at least in Canada) for 48 hours after a donation and can't donate more than once every 8 weeks. Once a week, I'd worry about running the engine dry and seizing up.
 
My first first solo was one circuit on June 3, 1973 in a C150 at CNC3 Brampton Ontario. The plane was $18/hr solo and $25 dual. The following day, after a circuit check, my instructor said "go flying"...so I did. After about 45 min of awesome scenic local flying I was called on the radio and asked where I was. Told them where and was told to "get back to the field and land immediately". Upon arrival I was greeted on the ramp by by my instructor who "informed" me I was only allowed to do solo circuits until cleared to the practice area....who knew! I was laid off from work shortly after and did not get my license at that time.

My second "first" solo came on November 15, 2004, 31 years, 3 jobs, 2 wives, 4 kids, 3 houses and many cars later in a C152 at CZBA Burlington Ontario.

Now, after owning a C172 and an RV4, I am having a blast flying the RV7 I built.

Great thread! Love the stories!
 
My first flight lesson was also out of Keesler AFB in Sept 1975, and that Cessna 150 was $11.50 per hour, and $6.30 for the instructor which was this retired AF pilot.

My last take off and landing that I made, do to Corona-19 was as a captain in an Airbus 320 into and out of Keesler AFB in April. Bringing in ?Pingers? from Lackland AFB to start tech school. They normally brought them by buses, but if they drove through the state of Louisiana, they would have to put them into quarantine for 14 days, and that was not going to work as they needed them to start tech school the next day. Back to Bus flying next month.

45 years and 22,000 hours later, they are all good memories.

Brian

Definition of "Pingers"...... The sound of the hair on the head of a new arrival (from basic training) growing back......:D
 
First solo: January 14, 1983, off MCAF Quantico Runway 20, Cessna 152 from the flying club. I was a teenager, and I yelled at nothing in particular after takeoff. When I got home that evening, my father, also an aviator, asked me if I yelled. DNA!
 
First powered flight solo July 13th, 1982 in a clapped out C150M at North Bay, Ontario, CYYB. The primary runway was constructed as a cold war fighter runway, complete with "Alert" hangars at the end, 10,000' x 150'.

We received good training there through the Royal Canadian Air Cadet "Power Scholarship", working our way from ab initio to PPL in six weeks.

Imagine the shock to the system when a young student pilot has grown accustomed to that monster runway, oriented into the prevailing wind, then his instructor takes him down the lakeshore to Sturgeon Falls airport (now gone darn it). It was a grass strip oriented north-south, at 90 degrees to prevailing winds, cut into the trees. The turn-around at the north end of the strip was literally three tracks made with concrete patio stones - one had to be able to turn sharply as there were darned few of those patio stones, and at that end of the airport, if you went off the stones, you were in mud!

My first "short/soft field" landing was made at Sturgeon Falls. Luck was with me as I nailed it, thanks to good coaching from my instructor. It was tight, even for a 150. I've since overflown it a few times and marveled at how such an inexperienced pilot managed to get an airplane into such a little coin slot of a runway. Now older, perhaps wiser, I would never attempt such a landing as that runway left a pilot with no options other than going into the trees.

As for first solo, yes, I yelled, too! It was a yell of pure, unadulterated joy. I still get that "pinch me" feeling as I climb out and see the vistas offered only to a pilot. How lucky are we who get to experience such exhilaration!
 
I too got my introduction to flying through the Royal Canadian Air Cadets in the form of a Gliders License. I (kind of) fondly remember soloing in a glider at Cooking Lake, Alberta. A small grass field back then, since redeveloped into a nice paved airport with an active flying community. To tell the truth, the solo experience was a combination of fear & panic, feelings & shades of green, too high, too fast, big bounce and big celebratory bucket of water over the head after the recovery crew had to walk the full length of the runway to get me. Somehow, I did complete the course and earn that license.
3 decades later, I returned to flying to earn my PPL at Springbank, Alberta. There, I was spoiled with 3000x85' (now 5000x100) & 2500x85' runways. My powered solo was a non event, and actually kind of disappointing as I missed having someone along to talk too. No water buckets in sight.
Fun thing is, TC attached my PPL to my original Glider license number and when folks see it, they think I'm a real old timer. Old right, old timer wrong.
 
1985, 16 yrs old, Bozeman, Montana In N9375T, a PA-38. 15,000 hrs and 35yrs later can still remember hooping and hollering on downwind like it was yesterday. Gotta admit, still hoop and holla a bit in the RV. It never gets old.

Kurt
 
This post from Mel made me think about my home base.

My training and solo was out of this strip https://papapetaluma.org/about-the-airport/ in 1979. "The Sky Ranch had a gravel runway 1800 feet long by 30 feet wide." By then it had been paved but only out to a width of 25 feet... and even at that the edges were eroded back to 20 feet by the time I started training there. There was a farm fence on one end and a road with power lines at the other. The runway was 1800' long and the turnoff was 3/4 down the runway. We were trained to make that turnoff, it led straight to the gas station type fuel pump.

You think all of this is normal.... until at around 10 hours we head out of our training area and go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Auxiliary_Landing_Field_Santa_Rosa This field is 7000' long by 150' wide. For me then, it was hard to land on. Go figure. The instructors at that airport would not let their students land in Petaluma.

My little strip was "normal" to us students and all that were based there. And that included a guy with a P-51. This guy always made the first turnoff. Remember the road at the end of the run way.... Driving in for a lesson one day, I looked down the runway just in time to see the P-51 lift off!! With the sun hitting the face of the prop, it looked (the disc) as wide as the runway.

Learn to fly from a small strip and you will never regret it.

May, 1989. Spencer MA - 60M 1800ft gravel in a 1946 65hp J-3 Cub after about 7 hours. Hand start, no electrics. Made radio communications easy at the time. They did a chip'n seal on the runway the same year. The plane and instructor are still around.

My first flight was 1969 in Dexter NY on my uncle farm in a Cub Special.

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Going back to the OP's comment about learning to fly out of a small field, I took my first lesson on 5/31/81 at Lucien Field in Shreveport, LA. 1,900 ft strip with pine trees off of one end. Solo was a little over 8 hours later on 7/11/81 and checkride on 11/7/81 signed off by Marion Cole (I was very intimidated to have 1/2 of the Cole Brothers act giving me a checkride). Lucien Field is now a housing development unfortunately.

Oh and when I took off on my first solo, I whooped and hollered and I remember slapping the empty seat next to me. I'll never ever forget that
 
Hickam AFB / Honolulu International in 1989 via the Hickam AFB Flying Club which no longer exists. Long solo cross country was from Honolulu to Kona International. That's a lot of water (150 nm) to cross in a 150. On the longest overwater leg (~60 nm), somewhere past Kaho'Olawe, I lost sight of land for what seemed like an eternity.

Walter, I too learned to fly out of Honolulu International in 1972. Soloed off of Ford Island, Pearl Harbor. Did my training at the local FBO thru the Air Force FIP program while in ROTC at U of H. In '89 I was flying DC-10's into HNL.
 
KPTK

I had turned 40 and was having (my first) mid-life crisis, saw a "$400 for the first 10 hours with instructor" on the billboard at flight 101, KPTK (Pontiac, MI). Seven hours later I soloed. That was 10 years, almost to the day, from my first logged intro flight when I decided I just couldn't handle it financially with a growing family and a rather small paycheck.

My strongest memory of solo is how fast the 152 got off the ground and climbed without my instructor in the plane. 10 years later that same 152 was parked right across the row at Oshkosh north 40. The young kid had flown it across Lake Michigan, which amazed me since the plane had near 6000 hours on it when I had soloed in it 10 years earlier! Now, 24 years later I hanger my shiny new RV10 at KPTK.
 
KBED

First solo at KBED. The tower had to order go-arounds twice before my first landing due to incoming jets. Yeah, it's busy there. It's so busy that Bedford needed 2 control towers...

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After using the 150' wide runway at KBED for flight training up through my checkride, my first landing after the checkride was in Brighton, MI which is only 24' wide.
 
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KAFJ (Washington co. Pa)

I made my first solo at KAFJ in 1976, age 16 after 6.2 hrs. total time. Brand new Cherokee 140 fresh from the Piper dealership on the airport, I think it was $18/ hr. wet...on my last of 3 landings my instructor called on the radio and told me to make the first taxiway turnoff landing RWY 27 to show my dad how good I was at short-field landings (1000-ish ft), both brakes locked and smoking the tires I made it. Good times!
 
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