Solo Time!!

Todd had his 1st solo flight tonight. I know going into it he was anxious, nervous, and excited all in one (as was I) but he did an awesome job!

The wives are allowed to go in and witness the solo ride portion of their husband's training. Todd had a briefing around 4:30 and by 5:00 he was on his way out to the plane. It is a tradition that before you go out, your IP will swap name tags with you (they actually put it on crooked on purpose-you will be able to see that in one of the pictures below. That way, when the other pilots see you in the hall they know that the wings are not yours but that you are borrowing them...then you aren't flying without wings.) He basically loans you his wings to fly your solo flight and normally says something like "good luck...you better bring these back to me". I got to see that and off we went so he could suit up. After he suited up and tested his mask, he was on his way to the plane.

Here he is checking his mask...he is ready to go!

I sat in their flight room while he was flying so I could hear his radio calls...it was pretty neat! There was another wife there at the same time (her husband had his solo ride also) and we kept pointing out the calls...."that's your husband"....."that's mine", etc. Todd's call sign was "wings 40". His classmates pulled out the areal map and showed us where they were for each radio call that they were saying. Once we heard that they were landing we quickly went outside, anxiously awaiting their arrival.

It is also tradition that after you have your first solo, you have to try to make it back to the flight room without being captured and thrown into a dunk tank. If you make it back into the room without getting dunked, everyone has to buy you a case of beer. Nine times out of ten, you get thrown into the dunk tank...they make it pretty hard for you to get back into the building, let alone to the flight room. (Some of Todd's friends really wanted to make sure he didn't make it inside....he had a pretty large crew waiting for him.)

There is their dunk tank (the tiger stripped one in the back)

After the pilots land, they normally get picked up by a bus and dropped off at the back door of their building. The other guy that soloed stayed on his bus and had the driver drop him off at the other side of the building (on his way by he yelled out that he had to write up a GPS or something...and at first the guys believed him!). However, they caught on quick and were able to capture him before he made it back into the flight room. Todd was on the next bus and a group of the guys opened the back of the bus and escorted him out...he did not have the option of staying on. He basically had no where to go...but he put up a pretty good fight. I will post the video but I have to edit it a little (the file is too big). Here are a few pictures to hold you over....

There are two of his classmates...ready and waiting for him!

After the dunking

Fresh and clean again...Ahhhh! (or at least dry!)

So there you go...another mission accomplished! Stay tuned for the video clip...it is pretty humorous. I will try to get that posted real soon. Bye for now!