Woo, I soloed today. When the lesson began, I did a few touch-and-gos with Mike, my instructor, just like we'd been doing for the last few lessons. When I landed the third time, Mike told me to pull off the runway and let him out. Hehehe. He signed the section of my logbook that says I'm endorsed to fly solo, grabbed a handheld radio to keep in contact with me, and off I went. I didn't expect it to happen so soon — I only had 9.1 hours of flight experience at that point, and I'd always heard that your first solo usually happens around 12-15 hours. But, surprisingly, when I was off on my own, I felt very ready and in control, and didn't feel frightened or anything.

Heh, and the fates didn't wait long to throw a little test in my way. I made two take-offs and landings with no problem, but just as I turned onto final approach for my third landing and gave my radio call announcing my position, I heard another pilot say he was about to take off on that same runway, in the opposite direction — towards me. I hadn't heard which airport he said he was at, but I suspected he must be at St. John (another airport about 30 miles away that uses the same radio frequency) because it made no sense for an airplane to be taking off in that direction. I'd been giving radio calls regularly for each leg of the traffic pattern, so any other pilots at the airport should have been well aware of where I was. Also, whenever possible pilots usually take off and land into the wind (the direction I was flying). You generally avoid taking off or landing downwind, because it significantly increases the amount of runway length you need and your speed in relation to the ground. But as I got closer to the airport, I could see the plane at the other end of the runway, just starting to roll in my direction.

Now, according to the FAA regulations, an airplane on final approach (that's me) has right-of-way over all other airplanes other than aircraft in distress, so he should have aborted his take-off once he saw me on final (and heard me give my radio call). But nope, he went ahead and took off, so I had to turn to keep from flying into him.

I thought Mike must have paid the guy to do that to give me a little test or something :) It made no sense for him to take off downwind, especially when I'd been giving regular radio calls on each leg. But he assures me he had nothing to do with it (which I guess realistically makes sense). I guess the guy just wasn't paying attention.

Fortunately, Mike (who was watching from the ground) said I did everything properly and handled the situation correctly. The regulations state that when two aircraft find themselves flying on a collision course, they should both divert to their respective right, which is what we both did. So that's good, to have a little extra assurance that I can handle weird situations.

So I can fly a plane, at least in the vicinity of my home airport. I'm not yet qualified to fly anywhere else on my own — that's what we'll start working on next — but it's a big step to reach your first solo, and I'm totally excited to have reached that point. Now I get to start learning about navigation, both by referencing ground-based landmarks — referred to as pilotage — and by tracking radio beacons. I'll be learning how to plan routes, calculate fuel consumption and time enroute for each leg, making calculations in flight to be sure I'm making the progress that I expected, etc. This continues to be the best decision I ever made.