Week Twenty One - First Flight

Soloing Our Plane for the First Time

The day had finally arrived, Sunday, July 22, 2001.

I'd done plenty of high speed taxi tests. Even a couple of small crow hops. But, now the big decision was to do a complete pattern. Talk about high pucker factor .... sheeesh.

I assembled an emergency crew, Tim Sullivan, Joanne, my son Don and daughter Kate. Plus, the crew had extra radios on the ground, fire-extinguishers, vehicles at the ready, et cetera.

And then it was time to go.

We selected the grass runway "22" at Mansfield for our first flight.

I'm all strapped in, everything has been triple checked, and I'm taxiing out to the runup area.

This is sort of a crappy picture because of the digital zoom. But, here's our plane taking off for the first time.

Passing through fifty feet.

There's still time to abort this take-off. But, everything is in the green. I'm still going for it.

Passing through about 100 feet. It's all over but the shouting now.

I'm committed to going all the way around.

Pattern complete, here I am making my first landing approach.

Final flare for landing.

The crowd cheers.

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