Gonna try for a poll here - a long standing tradition, at least in the US (and probably elsewhere) is for the back of the pilot’s shirt to be cut off after his/her first solo. I was wondering how many of us actually had that done.
I did - my flight school encourage the ladies to wear two shirts on that day, so as to not cause embarrassment. So my pre-solo picture shows my in a black turtleneck with a white t-shirt over it. My instructor kept the back half, I still have the front.
I was in the Navy and still in my working uniform when I soloed - North Island Navy Flying Club in Coronado, CA. I worked the midnight shift and my instructor met me at the club before he went to work (he was also in the Navy) and we had a quick hour lesson/solo to start the day.
Luckily, it was November, and chilly, so I was also wearing a sweater over my shirt. And if the club still exists and if it didn’t rot away, there’s a blue square of fabric with my name and 7 Nov 74 hanging along the top of the wall. Wow - 37 years ago… :eek:
I screwd up the poll feature so I’m going to ask for a little mod help. FairyChatMom, you might want to vote/repeat yourself in the new thread. Sorry for the inconvenience, I’ll go get more caffeine before starting a thread 
And… damn, I can find the “make poll” option. Poo.
Yep. Got a picture in an old album here, of my instructor cutting off my shirtail in 1975. With few exceptions, I take the shirttails of my students when they solo.
Posted a link about that a while back… here. That particular student now makes his living driving planes. 
Heading off to work, but I’ll be back this evening to vote in your poll.
See my post #113 of about 2 hours ago, in Asimovian’s “The Great Ongoing General Aviation Thread”, which I will more-or-less copy here:
So I see we’re telling our first solo stories.
3/22/1976 Schweizer 2-33 N1239S Aero tow, release 3000’ at Sky Sailing, Fremont.
For a first sailplane solo, I think they always say just do an airport circuit. That is, just take off, release as soon as you get to altitude, and just immediately re-enter the pattern and land. We don’t commonly do touch-and-go much in gliders.
[From] my log:
Well, having stopped short, I had to drag the plane a ways back to the parking area. No sweat, right. Gliders are light, right? Except I forgot to close the spoilers, which also meant the wheel brake was still on. So I dragged the poor glider half the length of the runway with the brake on.
All you people with the first solo stories – How many of you got the back of your shirt cut off? They weren’t doing that at Sky Sailing when I was there.
Mine was cut in 65.
My instructor didn’t cut my shirt, but I did it for my students if they agreed. Most did, and I have a collection of shirt tails with names and dates written in marker. Not sure what to do with them though. Any suggestions?
I didn’t get mine cut. In the back room of our flight school, there are a bunch of pictures with the instructor and student smiling while the instructor pulls the tail of the shirt toward the scissors in his other hand. Yet in none of the pictures is the instructor actually cutting the shirt, which leads me to the assumption that it’s staged and they don’t actually go through with it at this particular flight school.
I had to remind my instructor that I’d be running around in a bra if he stole my shirt on the ramp.
There’s a wall of t-shirts at Inland w/ sharpie or white out listing the students’ names, dates, and aircraft.
Lost the back out of my shirt. Hal Bonney signed it along with my name and date, and it went on the soaring clubhouse wall. When some neatnick took down all the trophys in a cleaning spree was about the time I started losing interest in the club.
Didn’t lose mine. I did have my wife’s instructor clue me in when she was soloing, however, so I could show up and take a picture of her when she got out of the plane.
I soloed in late 2000 and did not have the back of my shirt cut off. In fact, it wasn’t until a few months later when a friend of mine soloed at the same school (different instructor) and did have his shirt cut that I even learned of the tradition. My instructor was from the Czech Republic so it could be that she simply was either unaware of the tradition, or just wasn’t interested in doing it.
I soloed in New Zealand and hadn’t heard of that tradition. Needless to say my shirt is intact. I did get thrown into a swimming pool after my first solo in a glider.
I soloed on a glider in Germany a the age of 14. Here the tradition is to get a bouquet including stinging nettles and thistles pressed into your hands in order to improve your finesse with the stick, and get bent over the wing and one good whack on the ass from everybody to improve your feeling for the thermals. I’m not aware of any traditions in powered flight, though.
Better (maybe) than landing in the swimming pool on your first (or any) solo!
At Fremont, the glider port was right next door to a drag strip. The drag strip had big X’s painted at both ends, and obvious grandstands alongside – but people still landed there from time to time. Still, probably better than landing in a swimming pool.
On the other three sides of the runway, it was all cow pastures. I already told the story of how did on my first simulated rope break – ended up in the cow pasture.
All my flying was in Australia, with my first solo being in 1983. Never heard of the tradition. Although one flying school I attended (thankfully not the one where I did my first solo) had a tradition of soaking first soloers with buckets of water.
Only thing that happened when I did mine was the Air Traffic Controller congratulated me once I had landed, which was nice.