{"id":1210,"date":"2005-10-29T21:56:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-30T02:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=1210"},"modified":"2025-11-10T22:01:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T03:01:43","slug":"oh-i-have-slipped-the-surly-bonds-of-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=1210","title":{"rendered":"oh, i have slipped the surly bonds of earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I soloed today.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I’ll just share some pictures for the time being. My mind is still racing from the day and I can’t relax even though I know I should be able to on a Saturday night. But about the solo–It was all rather anticlimactic after all the buildup and anticipation. My instructor and I did about three landings together\u2014which I did flawlessly, I might add\u2014after which he got out and I took the plane up for three more takeoffs and landings by myself. My instructor stayed on the ground with a walkie-talkie and my digital camera and communicated with me on occasion. The plane performed very differently without the extra weight of the instructor. My first words immediately after I had cleared the trees on the first takeoff were, “Holy crap.” The plane just tore upwards, propeller knifing into the cold morning air, and I must have been at least 500 ft above the ground by the end of the runway.<\/p>\n

Anyway. On to the pictures:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Taxiing back to the end of the runway. I’m flying Skyhawk N6371F, the “queen of the fleet,” as it were. Very nice-flying airplane. Stable and controllable.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After I’ve taxied back and radioed my intentions, a picture-perfect takeoff.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Flying past my instructor and the camera, on the way up. See the top of this page for the picture of me climbing away.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I climbed to 1500 ft (pattern altitude), turned 180\u00b0 so I was flying back parallel to the runway, and then turned 180\u00b0 again to land the same direction I took off. The montage is me making the second about-face and coming in for a nice soft landing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Me and “Seven One Fox,” post-solo. I wish I could have flown some more. It was exhilarating. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I soloed today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1210"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3254,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions\/3254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}