Let Loose To Solo

Saturday, May 06, 2023 at 08:05 PM ET

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Key Takeaways:

The author humorously recounts his initial solo and cross-country flights, which were fraught with danger due to his youthful inexperience, including a near-miss with a control tower, accidentally entering a spin, and performing unauthorized negative-G maneuvers.
Further mishaps on his solo cross-country included experiencing airsickness, nearly triggering a search and rescue by forgetting to close his flight plan, and navigating challenging crosswinds on a farm strip, all while telling his instructor "nothing abnormal" happened.

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I learned to fly “the old-fashioned way,” in a Cessna 152 with its roots firmly in the Eisenhower administration. It had seemingly endured approximately one million hours. I had various flight instructors—none of them were any good, of course, in my eyes, because I had 14 hours of flight time and I was in my early 20s. Of course, they were good instructors; I just didn’t know it because I was young, rebellious and, let me just say it, stupid. “Stoopid,” even.

Old Yeller

One fine day after hours and hours of training, I was ready for my “initial solo.” See, the U.S. Air Force, which was paying for my civilian flight training, would only pay for so many hours, so suddenly, I was “ready.”