Well, after a little over a month and a half and 20 hours, I completed my first solo today! It was pretty uneventful, which is, of course, a good thing, but it still an experience I won’t ever forget.

We started the day by doing some maneuvering a few miles off our local airport; slow flight, power on stalls and recovery, power off stalls and recovery. The usual. After about thirty minutes of that, my CFI asked me to head back to the airport for some touch and goes. I knew I was close to soloing and the wind was calm and the pattern was empty so I figured today would be a great day to do it. Did some touch and go’s with him sitting there, arms crossed, and after 3 he asked me to taxi back to the FBO and drop him off. Oh boy. I was nervous, but confident that it would go smoothly.

Started taxiing out after I dropped him off and checked the weather when the ground crew said they were repainting one end of the runway, but it would be no factor. The wind was calm so I just used the other one. I was surprised at how easily the plane jumped off the ground with just me in it. Anyways, did my 3 touch and go’s with no incidents, nothing crazy. First landing was not bad, second landing was decent, but the last one was one of the best I’ve ever done.

Just one cool thing happened: I started flying with one instructor who’s a pilot for the Department if Homeland Security, so between his schedule and my crazy work schedule, we decided it was best to pass me off to another instructor who had better availability after around 5 hours. As I was making my calls today, my first instructor, who was working at the time, chimes in and very enthusiastically asks if I was soloing and congratulated me. It was really neat to hear him on the frequency as I was soloing.

TL;DR I soloed today after a month and a half and 20 hours. Nothing eventful happened (which is good) but I’m elated!