A student pilot's first solo is a momentous occasion. It's the first time you're at the controls without a safety net. For most students--me included--that first solo is "just" take-offs and landings in the traffic pattern at the airport. It's also dome with the instructor flying with you for part of the lesson then hopping out of the plane. That's not to take away from the achievement of the first solo, but it is also a very safe "close to home" flight and your instructor is still there in the plane with you at first with the preflight and doing some take-offs and landings to get you warmed up.
Today's solo flight was all me from the start. I had to check in with my instructor briefly (school policy), but that's just to confirm weather and make sure I've got all the stuff I need to solo (medial certificate, logbook with solo endorsement, student pilot license, photo ID). He also asked what I was thinking of doing. I told him I wanted to fly out to the practice area and just get a feel for how the plane responds with just one person in it. I also wanted to just try some turns and climbs by myself just to get a better feel for how they "feel" without my instructor in the seat next to me wondering what I'm doing. Some things are just easier to try on your own. He said "have fun" and I headed out to the ramp.
One of the first things on my preflight inspection is to check the fuel. This way if I need to add, I can do the rest of the preflight while waiting for the truck to pull up. I was less than half in each tank, so I called and proceeded with my preflight. Thirty minutes later, the truck pulls up. This gave me time to get things situated in the plane, including a picture of the plane which my daughter had painted in celebration of my first solo flight.
In many ways, today's flight was very similar to the first time I flew the Grumman earlier this Spring. That flight was "back to basics," so I could get the feel of the new plane compared to the Cessna I had been training in to that point. Climbs, descents, turns, stalls, etc. That's pretty much exactly what I did this time, except I was all alone in the plane. I didn't do anything crazy. I didn't want to. Today's flight was me--for the first time in my life--in the left seat of an airplane doing what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it. I was flying for the sheer joy of flying. It was what I've dreamed of doing since I was a kid. I flew, took some pictures and some video, and just reveled in the moment, soaking it all in. It was wonderful!
After flying around for a bit, I decided it was time to head back to the airport. Obviously I'd have liked to stay out longer, but time is money and there was nothing to be gained today by more time. This was a taste, a tease, incentive to keep seeing this process through. I flew west to I-25 at Castle Rock and turned north. The winds favored landing on runway 35, and I knew if I came up Parker Road as I normally do when coming back from the southeast practice area, they'd route me to runway 28, and I wasn't in the mood to deal with crosswinds. And besides, 35 right is 10,000' long and 150' wide. For a student solo, that's a pretty big target to hit. I contacted the tower, turned north, landed without incident, and my first full solo flight was over.
I have to admit, it was a little weird walking back into the pilot's lounge, placing the notebook and keys for the plane back on the shelf and just leaving. No debrief, no nothing. Flight's over, go home. The flight was over, yeah, but I was still flying pretty high the rest of the day.
