Is it just my perception, or does The Straight Dope have more pilots per active member than the population of the U.S. at large?
Am I too late to say;
“Congratulations and welcome to the fraternity of aviators!”
I am? And fraternity is sexist?
Well done hopesperson 
I wouldn’t have a clue. The Australian population that I know, is filled with pilots, but I suspect there’s some kind of sampling bias going on there :).
Add my congratulations to the list. Just wait until your solo cross country… You’ll realize why pilots (or at least me) love it when a city has a water tower.
I agree that we do have an unusually large sampling of pilots on this board.
With any luck, I’ll be soloing a hot-air balloon by spring (one flyable day per month sucks… stupid Mother Nature.) That’ll make me one of the more diverse pilots of the bunch… With glider, power (I’ll have CPL, IFR and multi soon enough) and balloon… And I hope to get some ultralight instruction this summer… If I can find a good instructor and an aircraft that can handle me (I’m a big boy)
Try to look for an instructor with a CGS Hawk - the designer, Chuck S (I couldn’t spell his full last name if my life depended on it) is a big guy himself, like 250-300 lbs, and he planned accordingly.
Congrats! I was really nervous the day of my 1st solo. Was actually better once I was at the airport. I hd two supervised solos before my instructor let me on my own (i.e. go flying without him at the airport).
LiveOnAPlane, I’d love to get a seaplane if I’d ever thought I would use it.
Brian
'Nuther congratulation for you here! Glad to see another one join the ranks.
Did your instructor cut your shirttail? I still have a picture of my shirttail being scissored away while everyone on the ramp watched.
Thanks to everyone who has weighed in with congratulations. I’m eagerly awaiting my cross-country work, and my solo cross country in particular. I’m hoping to finish up around the end of summer, maybe a little sooner depending on the million different things that can throw off a training schedule. I figure I can use the meantime to continue to try to talk my wife into allowing me to buy a plane.
My flight school doesn’t do the shirttale thing, which is just as well since I didn’t know I would be soloing on Sunday, and I had to go to work right after the lesson. :eek: But I do get my picture up on the “recent accomplishments” wall in the FBO, which is something.
Finally, let me take this opportunity to say that flying an airplane is one of the most fun things I have ever done – and I’m just flying a plane ol’ trainer. How fortunate I am to be able to pursue one of my lifelong dreams!
Get it… plane ol’ trainer???
Yeah, I mean to do that.
So…did the plane take off from a conveyor belt? And if so, how could it -
If you think airplanes are fun, try a helicopter!
Flying a helicopter is the most fun you can have and still have your clothes on.
So what I do is rent a helicopter, take off my clothes, and it’s the most fun I can have!
Let me add my congratulations. What a fun day…
At some point in the future, when you have been thinking about wanting to do this or that and realize that the airplane is not designed to do that, go find an airplane you can not break, unless you burn it or blow it up or impact the earth, say along the lines of a Two Hole Pitt’s, put a good acro-pilot in the back with the request to keep you from hurting the engine and go up and try to yank the wings off, and do all those things that you have always wondered, ‘what if I do this real fast’.
I hope it will last in your memory as well as your first solo.
It has for me.
Shirttail??? Where I soloed you lost the whole back half of your shirt!
(Yes, us girls, too)