1st solo after a half a day of intense winch launching and cable break practice in a K-21 glider. The instructor then pulled up a K-18 single seater (completely different in construction and flying qualities), stuffed me in it and hooked on the cable... I survived and a great experience for a 16yr old.
1st power solo at a very active airfield full of singles, twins, turboprops, jets, helicopters, etc. Tower frequency exceedingly busy, so read backs had degenerated to acknowledgements by the way of the last two letters of your callsign, due to congestion.
Flew a huge circuit, under ATC direction (they were aware I was a 1st solo) as there were about 12 ahead. On short finals, got a “cleared to land”. According to witnesses, there was a late go-around instruction which I didn’t read back due to fixation on the imminent landing. A Jetstream entered the runway to backtrack just as I touched down and all I remember was two propellors getting larger and larger as we rapidly closed on each other. I had severe doubts as to whether I could stop in time and didn’t fancy being chewed up by those props, so firewalled the throttle, pulled back and got airborne again over the other aircraft as the pilot dived off the runway...
Did a rather wobbly second circuit then shut down on the apron. Thought: “well, that’s my aviation career over and done with” but the CFI was very good, especially when he saw my dinner plate eyes and bloodless complexion. A lot of lessons were learned by a lot of people that day!