First Solo Flight

[Graham Ritchie]

Came across an interesting video of this person doing his first solo flight. I thought he did really well kept his cool I was watching him do his pre-flight checks and to this day I still remember mine, although not written down all in my head. My first solo was long ago but its something you never forget. I had a look through my old log book to find the date. The aircraft was in Piper Cherokee 140 four seater, what a great feeling to be let loose for the first time, anyway I thought I would link that video I was talking about, this young chap could have a career in flying one day

Yee old log book

[Dave Bickford]

When I was 16 year old kid WAAAAY back in the day, I took a flight lesson. My parents wouldn’t pay for the full course, but that introductory flight was awesome! I know the instructor did 99% of the flight, but he did let me fly the plane a bit when we’re at 10k feet. One of the best days of my life!

[Steve Klare]

My very, very first flight was in a Piper (high wing, tricycle landing gear) when I graduated from Elementary School. The experience was a gift from my sister, who was in the Civil Air Patrol and knew a guy! It was a surprise announced in the airport parking lot! (Good thing I was cool with it!)

I flew a lot for my job(s) a couple of decades later and have been all over the world, but that first flight had seat of the pants reality to it I never got back in coach, even with the bags of peanuts and tiny cans of ginger ale!

Graham? I guess a little plane like this would arrive on New Zealand knocked down in crates and assembled locally: that's a LOT of distance to island-hop!

[Dave Bickford]

I believe the aircraft I flew was a typical single engine Cessna that was common at the time. After reviewing this post, I remembered a couple of “interesting” things the instructor demonstrated. That day was very windy 🌬️ so the turbulence kind of added to the fun. The instructor turned the aircraft into the wind and set the engine to idle. We held altitude. That’s how strong the wind was. The other thing he did was demonstrate a stall. He pitched the plane nose up so we lost lift. We rolled over and were in free fall briefly. Scared the f**k out of me! Fortunately it was a pre planned controlled scenario to prove a point and he knew how to recover. Darn it! Despite my current fear of heights I want to fly a plane again. That was really a fun day except for that moment when I thought I was going to die! Actually, that was fun too in a weird sort of way! 😁

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Steve

I don't no much about this aircraft, but the wings do come off for transportation, the time I spent working for the aero club we were mostly Piper, the Cherokee 140 was our main trainer and it was built like a tank, one of the best aircraft to learn in, a very forgiving airplane. We did have a couple of Cessna 172 as well, but I never thought much of them compared to the Piper low wing types we used, which were a lot more stable on the ground in strong gusty conditions which are frequent here, known as the Nor Wester.

Dave

Sounds like he put into a spin for the 10 years I worked at the aero club, we used to do a test flight on average once every two weeks. My boss did a test flight in our old Piper cub once with me in the back, after a while he said is there anything you want to do?, mmmm steep turns was my answer, that was fun, until he called out to me....Haggis if you don't mind I would like to keep my EYE BALLS in there sockets?..... I always remember that.As an employee we used to get $100 dollars free flying a year. It cost $23 dollars an hour back then, so it was pretty good. I also worked two jobs, aero club during the day and Avis two evenings a week plus a Saturday to pay for my flying lessons, they were good times, hate to think what it costs now. That above video looks like it was in Holland and the aircraft in the video I understand is a Hoac Katana Dv 20 an all composite construction. We did replace some of the 140s, the older ones with the Tomahawk but they never really caught on compared to the Cherokee 140. At the time I worked there we looked after around 19 club aircraft, no idea what it is now

It all seems like a million years ago but that first flight, especially if you have been let loose on your first solo shown in the above video, he will never forget.


I still have that green tool box

The Arrow was fast we used one for stretcher cases

[Graham Ritchie]

And if you can find this gem of a film on blu-ray its a winner in my book

[Graham Ritchie]

this topic made me search out old reading material, this one is a absolute must to get its a gem to read it helped me out a lot called "Flight Without Formulae" by A.C.Kermode I used parts of it before heading up to the great blue wonder.

So if anybody here is going to give up film collecting for flying then look out for a old copy