First Solos
In 2009, a business colleague's 16 year old son, Rowan Lawson soloed on his 16th birthday at Shoreham Airport ... first on an Enstrom G-BBPO for a fifteen minute flight and one hour later repeated a 1st solo on a fixed wing Scottish Aviation Bulldog (nee Beagle 150).
One year later at Shoreham Airport, his younger brother, Sebastian Lawson repeated the exercise with a 1st solo on his 16th birthday flying the same Enstrom and like his brother went on to 1st solo a fixed wing the same day. Both passed their skills test on both rotary and fixed wing types on their 17th birthdays to qualify for the CAA (EU) licences.
The youngest 1st solo I've heard of took place at Redhill Aerodrome on 13th August 1994 when the pilot was aged 13 years & one month. The aircraft was a Hughes 269 with the event being recorded on video. The pilot had 115 hours in his log book. The pilot later soloed officially on his 16th birthday on both a Schweizer 269C and a TB10 fixed wing on 10th July 1997.
These days, the youngsters beat us to it all the time! Dennis K.