First flight April 1970, Chipmunk, Cambridge AEF, insisted on being turned upside down.
First solo T-31 at RAF West Malling, August 1972, aged 16. My second solo was very short, a cable break at 200ft - I asked if I got to do that one again (because after the 3rd you went to the back of the priority list) and was told "No, you got airborne and landed again. That counts!".
It was West Malling where one of my contemporaries at school lost his father (a serving Wg Cdr) in a cable-break accident (1973). The nose-down pitch after the break didn't stop and they went in just past the vertical. It turned out the cadet in the front had a caliper on his leg and it was believed to have prevented aft stick being applied.