Had to post and let you all know. My oldest son (15) soloed on Sunday. It was a beautiful day at the field, a little chilly but there was no wind to speak of. He had two successful solo flights before we had to head home for the day. Took off and landed absolutely perfect. Flew all in all about 45 minutes between the 2 flights then he flew during some of my flights for additional practice. He made me so proud.


He is getting a 4*60 (I think) for Christmas, someone at the field gave him a 60 size engine on Sunday for his new plane after he builds it.


Had to share that.

Well congrats to him!! 4 star 60 will be a great 2nd plane for him. Was my second plane as well. How long did it take him to solo? Better watchout! Us teens have been know to get really good, really fast! ;)

Hard to say actually, we started flying in mid July but I couldn't get hiom out to the field much during summer. He was in the mts with his grandmother every weekend. I'd say he may have about 18-24 flights with eithe rme or someone else taking off and landing fir him. It was jsut recently he actually started showing a real interest since the July. He's doing rolls and loops already also.

Congradulate him for me!
I have a son ( 14 ) who has been flying for 2 years.....
I know you are proud of him and you should be!
Congrats to you both!!!!! :D :D :D
Southerngent

Do you think you could get a picture of him and the plane? I'd like to include it in a future column.

Jerry

Jerry,

I'll taker some pics this weekend out at the field. I have about a half roll to finish off. There are pictures of my kids on my website. My oldest son is Michael. He's about the 4th pic on the photo page. THere is a caption under his pic.

I have to get my youngest son adn my daughter flying next year. My youngest son cna fly in the air but I think he is losing interst. He hasn't wanted to fly for the past month and a half. He does so well too. It's a shame. My daughter is 9, she wants to start learning next year. I'm looking forward to warm weather again.

CONGRATS!

I also soloed (unofficially) on Sunday. My first time out with my Avistar. I've been flying a much slower/lighter/smaller parkflyer since August (taught myself) and have racked up probably between 20-30 flights (probably 3/4 of which were "successful/damageless flights) with that before taking the Avistar out.

First flight the instructor took off, and one of the muffler bolts fell off leaving the muffler dangling precariously by one bolt. Engine subsequently died and my instructor expertly dead sticked my virgin Avistar. We took the muffler off and started the plane again. This time the instructor took off and got some altitude. He swapped the controller into my greedy hands and presto I was flying. Pretty well too, all that practice with my parkflyer paid off. Did a little bit of hotdogging doing loops and rolls. 15 minutes or so later, we swapped controllers and he landed. Next flight I took off (easily given 5-10mph winds that we had) gained a good amount of altitude and continued where I left off, flying large and small patterns, figure 8s, loops, axial rolls, barrel rolls, and immelmanns. About 15 or so minutes passed and the instructor had me fly several landing patterns (into the wind). He was contemplating whether or not to take the controls for the landing, but after watching me fly he said, "you WILL land this airplane". So I did with little issue. The Avistar comes in a little hotter than the Sig Kadet LT 40 that was also at the field that day, but I did a 3 point with only a very small hop upon touchdown. AND the engine was still running. The instructor said that had to be the first time in his days of instructing that he had a student land and still have the engine run. I taxied the plane back and refueled. Final flight was somewhat more dramatic. I took off again with little issue (did have to use the rudder this time to correct my line (which was into a tree) before the wheels left the ground. Zoomed around the sky for 10-15 minutes, when I throttled down a little too much and the engine stopped. The instructor asked if I wanted him to take over, I figured I might as well try while my luck was high. I took my unpowered Avistar around for a near perfect landing pattern only to get a little disoriented at the end. I landed very softly in the taller weeds 4 ft from the runway. No plane damage. The instructor was yelling he couldn't believe that I was able to dead-stick on my third flight!

Had a ton of fun, pretty upset that I waited until I was 30 before I picked this up. Now if I can only get my 4 year old daughter and 1 and 1/2 year old son to fly too... Well maybe I'll start them out with the parkflyer.

Originally posted by DSJBEAN

Had to share that.

Congrats! To both of you :)

The first solo is a special occasion!
Glad to hear people are encouraging their kids to join this fantastic hobby!

Jon

Originally posted by tailskid
Do you think you could get a picture of him and the plane? I'd like to include it in a future column.

Jerry

Are you doing an article about young people who fly??

Chris

I am always looking for the 'investment' of the youth in our hobby. I would like to include a pic a month of someone who has just soled - especially young people (that is someone younger than me:) ).

Jerry

I like that idea. I'll get film developed this weekend and send you over some pics. We're planning on flying both Saturday and Sunday weather permitting. Hopefully for sure on Sunday, my wife is having a candle party and I really don't want to be around that day.......

Darn! I soloed a year and a half ago.:)