Solo

November 17, 1942 ranks as one of the top 10 best days of my life. The day I made my first solo flight. It was in the PT-17 Stearman biplane. It's a whole chapter in my autobio-graphy, reduced to a couple of paragraphs for this posting:

    The landing was the best I had ever made... There was no doubt in my mind... I knew I had a good check-ride. I taxied to the ramp. The Major climbed out and asked, “Who taught you to side-slip a biplane?”

With a big smile, I mumbled a reply; saying something about a guardian angel. I understood what I said – I guess the Major did too; he never asked me to repeat. He just said, “Take the Stearman back up for thirty minutes; practice your figure-eights, shoot a couple of landings, then come in and report to me”.  But added with a big smile of his own, “If you hurt my airplane, don’t bother to report, just go pack your bags.”

Less than an hour later, I was calling my dad, to tell him the good news, “I soloed!”



.