Ok maybe it was 11 or 12. However due to the typical British weather, that took about two years. Lots of ground school but, actual airtime? Yeah, roughly 10 mins.
Before anyone asks, the answer is no I am not an airline pilot.
C-150, around 5.2 spread out over a few months at 16.5 years old.
I'll put that min time down to a fascination of controlling anything in motion, and mostly due to a uncluttered mind totally bereft of any concept of personal mortality.
Now 32 years later, I think I would need therapy attempting a similar act.
...but...on my first solo climb out, my seat came unlatched and slid back and off the rails. I’m not very tall, so with feet way off the pedals and barely touching the yoke with my left index finger, I survived. I had enough sense of mind not to instantly grab the yoke to prevent my sliding back, thus pitching the nose up, stalling before I even reached pattern altitude.
I was trimmed slightly more nose up than needed. So, wallowing around there in the climb, with my outstretched arm and finger holding the yoke forward, I reached out and eased the trim wheel nose down with my right hand until I was roughly level.
Then I began to take a look around at my seat and predicament. I screwed around with the seat and got it a few more inches forward and jammed sideways a bit. “Sitting on the edge of my seat”, way out of the traffic pattern and drifting over Oceanside California, I managed to barely get my feet back on the pedals, make it back to the pattern, clear the high tension wires and make my first solo landing. I taxied up and shut it down with my instructor fuming mad and demanding to know where the hell I went. Then he noticed that I was sitting funny and he opened the door and saw my twisted seat and predicament. I swear he turned white as a ghost.
An AD came out for seat rail stops on Cessna’s some time later, but I had already made my own and carried it in my flight bag. I still have it. So I had my first emergency on my first solo. Might not be a record but I'm in a rare club.
Last edited by Temp Spike; 23rd Nov 2012 at 05:53.
I've learned to fly no less than three times in total.
1. Air Cadets. Solo at 15 (they made a mistake) in a Sedbergh. I doubt I had ONE hour TT in it, but that wasn't unusual as a flight only lasted about 5 mins.
2. Age about 19, I relearned to fly Gliders with Pegasus GC at Gutersloh and Eagle GC at Detmold. That was fun but I was pretty much starting over again from scratch.
3. Age 33, I started flying again with a view to gaining a CPL. Again, my prvious experience didn't seem all that much help- although it must have helped a bit. Took 7:45.
