On my solo cross country, I cheated a little. My first airport had a VOR, so after taking off, I dialed up the radial direct and enjoyed my 1.5 hour flight. The next leg was to fly over a small town, no VOR, no NDB, just a grain elevator , so I had to use my VFR charts. B)

 

RJ

mine was for a microlight license

and yea, similar to the first description, instructor jumped out, told me to take off again....

muuuch shorter takeoff distance due to a a quarter of total take off weight being gone, but also didnt feel too much or think about it too much.

flew to a point 10 minutes away and then back, its only on the way back when i wanted to ask a question through the headset that i realized 'o crap, im all alone.... gave me the biggest smile ever'

On my solo cross country, I cheated a little. My first airport had a VOR, so after taking off, I dialed up the radial direct and enjoyed my 1.5 hour flight. The next leg was to fly over a small town, no VOR, no NDB, just a grain elevator , so I had to use my VFR charts. B)

 

RJ

I always use navaids when available, even at checkride

I remember my first solo because, well, it was at night! But wasn't really a big deal to me -- I was actually more comfortable landing at night than during the day (because of my schedule I was forced to fly after 5-6pm back in high school). The solo was more of 'Oh cool, can I go flying solo now all the time?!'.

Here's a twist on the topic, a different way of answering: What were the hit songs on the radio at the time you solo'd?

 

My answer: The Logical Song, Damned If I do, Sultans of Swing

 

Can you guess the year?

 

Also, I received a cool poster from my FBO after my solo. It shows a mother bird kicking the baby bird out of the nest, has the date of the solo, and is signed by my instructor. I'll try to scan & post it later.

 

As I recall, it was a sunny warm summer day, we had been practicing touch and goes. I remember that I was excited, but not so much that I didn't feel confident, and it went well. I do recall that I was much more excited about it after I had tied the plane down, and went in to the office to pay my bill. Euphoria would be a good way to describe it.

I knew it was coming. My instructor (a retired Navy admiral) told me to wear an old shirt to my next lesson. We flew a pattern, landed, brought the airplane (a Piper Tomahawk) to a stop on the runway. He opened the door and started to get out. He gave me a few words of wisdom and left. I remember sitting there a while till I felt ready. The airplane jumped off the runway. It caught me by surprise. Then a big gust of random wind (I swear) caused the wing to dip perilously. I reacted quickly, brought the wings level and averted disaster. It wasn't till I was downwind that I gave myself a little time to look around and breathe in the magnificent milestone. I felt truly alone, and in complete control over those little ants on the ground. I had 6 hours flight time. It was 1977. I was 21.

 

Thanks for the memory.

No stories of being drenched with an ice cold bucket of water? That's what I remember of my first solo LOL... ^_^

In NZ it was 10hrs minimum to solo. I was rolling through 13 and getting frustrated. It was a warm day. Was with a B-cat instructor and got a darned bleeding nose at the hold point... Fortunately that cleared up quick. Did some laps and we taxied back to the hold point. Mr Instructor got out. Advice was if he nose started going again - let it run! I also noticed the vastly improved ('improved' is a relative term...) climb performance of the much lighter 152. Don't remember much more of the lap. Messed up getting on the parking spot a bit. Walked back into club house feeling 10' tall and bullet proof. (Before anyone starts, I never felt that on the walk in the other direction...). Passing my NZ PPL flight test wasn't quite the same level, but I was still extremely satisfied with myself. And passing my Oz PPL flight test was met with little more than relief.

I remember my first solo, which took place on my birthday in December 2011. Me and my instructor went up and did a quick circuit while he told me some basic 'words of wisdom' (the plane will be lighter without me, etc..) We landed and taxied back to the hangar. He got out, signed my logbook, and told my anxious parents "There's a good possibility that he'll survive this". I got back in the plane alone and went up for 4 touch and goes. I felt the same way that you did (OP), like it was no big deal. I was however, VERY careful when making my first solo landing!

I am personally a bit frightened at the idea of soloing after six-seven hours of flight training! The younger you are the quicker you learn, but I guess it also depends on how the training is structured. After seven hours flighttime I only had 11 landings under my belt in my taildragger but a whole lot of experience of different maneuvers, stalls, dives, etc. Our 20 hour requirement of flight time before soloing automatically makes it impossible.

On my solo cross country, I cheated a little. My first airport had a VOR, so after taking off, I dialed up the radial direct and enjoyed my 1.5 hour flight. The next leg was to fly over a small town, no VOR, no NDB, just a grain elevator , so I had to use my VFR charts. B)

 

RJ

 

Reminds me of my first solo cross country "cheat"....I flew the x-c route 7 times over Tileproxy so when it was time to do it RW,it was just another fun trip...I knew exactly where I was at all times...Thanks,FSX and Tileproxy!!

Ice cold buckets of water eh?

 

An interesting trip down memory lane as a result of this post. I went back and dug out the aforementioned shirttail, buried in a drawer full of other momentos. Hadn't thought about it in years, but there it was. An old green polo shirtail, raggedly cut, lettered now with my name, First Solo, the date (4/15/88 - oh the humanity!) and my instructor's name and ID. Man.

 

I also found a "hypoxia worksheet" from an altitude chamber ride I did some years back. Duplicate sheets while on O2, and then awhile after removing the masks (I don't remember how high we were - 20,000', 25,000'?). Question: "How many 3 cent stamps are in a dozen?" Answer with O2: "12". Answer some time after removing the mask: "4" Well, the good news was I could still do simple math, the bad news was I no longer realized I didn't need to.

 

Ah, memories. :-)

 

Scott

I remember by first solo I had I think 7 hours logged time but I had been flying with my dad since I was a kid so it wasn't anything new to me. My instructor and I went on quick checkout flight came back in got coffee to wait for my mom to get to the airport then I went and solo'd made three no stop touch and goes pretty uneventful. My dad had always let me do all the flying as long as he was in the left seat so by the time I solo'd I flew everything from a Cessna 152 up to a Piper Navajo to our Yak 52 doing aerobatics if I could have legally logged all that time I'd have an extra 300 hours or so. My main thought was Oh S*** there's no one else in here as I was rotating on my second touch and go.

Holy batman-I am up here and they are down there and only I am responsible for returning things to equilibrium....

Similar story here. My instructor ordered me to park near the fuel island and got out and said, "Time for your solo! Don't worry you will do fine." I said,"Wait, wait, wai...." He slam the door shut. Then I said,"I can do this." Did the pattern 3 times and lost my back side of my shirt. I'm glad he didn't advised me in advance because if he did I'd have been very nervous and anxious. That was what happen for my first cross country solo. I could only sleep for about 30 minutes night before with excited anticipation and reviewed my flight plan 5-6 times did couple chair flying and completed cross country flight perfectly in my opinion.