I had my first Solo on 06/29/2011 I will never forget that awesome day! A week prior to all this I had to take two test that my school issued before I soloed. Aced the first one and 98 percent on my second one, since I am a part time student and for obvious reasons I am attending a Part 61 flight school, called Magnum helicopters located in Waterford, MI, they fly out of Pontiac international airport (PTK or KPTK to be exact, Aka my Username )I am a pay as you go student so I get bummed sometimes when I cant fly more often, Witch I know is the best route but you got to start somewhere.

I graduated early from high school (class of 2010) to start on my WOFT packet, had to take a online course and write a letter to the principle about why I wanted to graduate early. I then passed both my ASVAB with a 112 GT score and the AFAST with a 100 score. The main reason I wanted to graduate early was because my brother got me an interview with a CW5 for a letter of recommendation for my WOFT packet. It was a honor being able to meet someone that has been flying for the military for 20 Plus years and was willing to talk with me! talkeing to him put in perspective how very very little I knew about aviation, thing is I only talked to him for around a hour! After flying down to Fort benning Georgia, driving to Fort Rucker Alabama, and talking with him. I then realized that I needed to be more competitive before I submitted my packet. I kept in contact with him via email and the last I talked to him was a few months ago. so I contacted a Heli school that I knew about and was only 10 minutes away from my house. Went in and talked to them, then scheduled a intro to flight. then the day of the flight we talked a little and then he preceded to show me how to preflight the R22 we then warmed her up and off we went. Boy was it windy! I kept pulling aft cyclic for some reason at the beginning of the flight but then started to get the hang of the one control I was semi controlling the cyclic, It was then I realized how hard flying really was!

So after that I started flying around once a week because of the finances. I should of studied a lot more in the beginning of flight training but I learned! I know have the study bug I call it, I have the urge to study every chance I get, I wouldn't even call it studying because of how much I enjoy it.

I was moving along decently getting autos down somewhat, radios, patterns, non-towered airport reportings, approaches, takeoffs, emergence procedures, etc list goes on you all know what I'm referring to. I was enjoying every minute of it, don't get me wrong I had those days where it felt like I moved back 5 lessons! after around 16 hours my instructor started mentioning me being ready to solo, so I got my class 3 medical certificate and studied and passed the tests they gave me. Now to get back to what I started on.

SOLOING, Probably the best experience of your life up to that point! So the day I was scheduled to fly was 06/29/2011, he did not tell me I was going to be soloing but I had the feeling I was going to. Did a thorough preflight and the chopper was ready to go, pushed her onto the ramp and started her up. hovered up to where the tower could see us radioed in and 27R pattern here we come. did three patterns one being a decent auto( Yes I know I already posted some of this in the flight training forum )after that we went back to the ramp talked a little bit about the difference of the weight when it is only me in the Heli( he demonstrated this a few times in recent lessons)and how many patterns i was going to do. Then when I was ready I brought her light on the skids and did a very decent pick up hovered there while I radioed in and of I went, was limited to three traffic patterns, the first one I climbed to 800 feet because of how much of a weight difference it was that R22 will just keep on climbing with one person in her! the other two went as good as I could of asked for my first solo but man was that awesome! hover taxied back to the ramp he climbed back in the helicopter and shook my hand that was a awesome feeling of accomplishment.

More to come have to hit the sack -Josh