A Student Pilot Gets A Surprise On A Pre-Solo Flight

My first solo (or should I say, “solos?”) was two years, five months, 13 days and nine hours in the making. And some of that was pretty exciting stuff.

Just shy of my 15th birthday, I had quite the proposal for my parents “Mom, dad, I want to learn how to fly.” I might as well have suggested I wanted to do brain surgery next week on Uncle Bob. Not that he couldn’t use a little tweaking of the gray matter, but the look I got from my parents, who truly believed that aircraft flew by magic and should be left to those creatures born with wings, was nothing short of bewilderment.