Hi Jason .,

 J> Hello everyone.

 J> I wanted to introduce myself to the group here.  My 
 J> name is Jason Cullins and I
 J> am a student pilot here in Alabama.  

 J> I'd love to hear any stories from people who have 
 J> gotten their pilots license.
 J> It has been one heck of an experience for me 
 J> personally.  I completed my first
 J> solo not too long ago and I have to say, it was like 
 J> nothing i have ever done
 J> before.  I was nervous and the whole bit. 


In my personal experience as the Chief Flight Instructor for the contract
flight training service at Easterwood Airport in College Station for much
of the whole era of Viet Nam, where I rode at least once with over 1200
Texas Aggies for their initial flight training .. and through which one way
or another they all had to reach the solo flight level  .. from which have
come some 47 US generals, I'll comment to you.

You have just undergone the most significant change in your entire life
that you likely will ever pass through!  For the first time, you were not
forced, but chose to make, a life or death decision based on looking down
into your life in a third dimension, the dimension of height .. and
succesfully touched those wheels back to the pavement.  All on your own!

That single instant, although you don't know all about it yet, has just
shifted your entire life and problem solving approach from a two dimension
to a three dimension reality.  For the very first time!  You will, one way
or another, start solving all your problems in life by looking down into
them, instead of bashing at them only on the basis of what you see in front
of and around you, at differnt distances from you.

And .. you will never be able to go back at this point.

Sure, there are more than three dimensions!  1, 2, 3, infinity; the fourth
dimension of time and on and on!  But this multi-dimensional life process
you have just jumped off into, really is, as far as all my experience
shows, ONLY available to those who have confronted the issue of height on a
real life or death, while dropping, basis.

No .. playing with a computer game for all this does NOT count.  It only
counts with real life or death results in real time in a real airplane as
far as I can tell.

The issue I saw back in the 1960's about all this was so serious, that if a
civilian came to us for flight lessons soloed, went on to get a Private
License and so on, and their significant other didn't at least also solo as
well, there was about a 90% chance there would be a divorce or worse for
that relationship.  So we tried to make sure, if possible,that in the
civilian world, those new students we took on also would help bring in the
significant other to at least solo as well.

I firmly believe those 47 US generals who came from the program wherein all
Texas Aggies who went on in any of the Army, Air Force or Navy crews from
A&M, got the equivalent of a private pilot course with us, came upward
to their prized positions from this ability to look down into a problem and
get a better solution from their training.

Now .. so said, there is yet another aspect to this magic of flight, and
what you have just experienced from your very first solo.

Every Perigine Falcon also knows that somewhere, in the absolutely
transfixing dive of love, you have to also know when to turn loose and face
reality.  As I see it, that is what I will call the fourth dimension of
time.

It takes a while longer, as I see it, to begin to understand that aspect of
life as well, even though, as you have posted, you do understand that it
was like nothing else you have ever done.

You have just set foot on the most incredible pathway toward a life that I
believe no other person than one who has learned to solo fly and airplane
can really understand.

Everything in your life has now changed, permanently, one way or another.


--> Sleep well; OS/2's still awake! ;)

Mike {at} 1:117/3001




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