Solo

After about ten flights or so, they think we’re proficient enough to fly around the pattern alone. We fly a few patterns with an IP right beforehand, then shutdown, kick them out, and start it up again solo.

I’ll admit, that pre-solo flight was the first so far that I was noticeably nervous. I made a lot of small mistakes, wondering how confident they were that I could survive a solo flight. His answer upon landing was “You’ll do fine. Just don’t do that again, or that again, or that again. Have fun.”

Once the canopy was locked again however, it was a totally different mindset. My checklists went quickly and smoothly, and I had the best flight so far. Nerves were calm, clarity of mind, focused. For the first time I found myself on altitude (not 150 feet high), and I didn’t make any comment-worthy mistakes. Another classmate set the record for comments, numbering somewhere around 18, twelve of them being improper radio transmissions.

We have a radio in the flight room and were listening for our other solo flights while they were up. The tradition is that if they can make it safely back into the flight room afterwards, they get a case of beer from everyone in the flight. Nobody in the flight has made it though, and everyone was in turn caught on the flight line and thrown into the dunk tank. I tried to run for it and didn’t get very far before being nabbed and putting up a good fight. The maintainers got a good laugh at me being carried away overhead yelling “You’ll never take me alive!”