First Solo

It was 25 years ago on January 28, 1986 when I did my first solo in a fixed-wing aircraft. I'd been let loose to do my first trip around the traffic pattern alone by my instructor, Steve Bonk. Years later Steve would turn up at one of my seminars as a student of kenpo, using the training to keep himself in shape after a heart attack.
   The airplane jumped off the ground faster than I was used to, just as Steve had told me to expect. It was due to both the colder air and him not being in the airplane, so there was less to lift. Man, that right seat was empty but I could hear his voice, "Carb heat, power reduced, flaps 15." It came off without a hitch.
  I picked him up and we taxied in. (Instructors typically stand next to the runway at first solo. You let them out and they stand there to watch. Don't you dare forget to go get him or her after, excited or not. We got back to the office and heard the news; the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded. Mixed with the elation of doing my first solo I wanted to cry for the lost crew. To this day I get goosebumps when I think about it. It's an odd symmetry, my beginning my aviation career and an end to theirs.
   I eventually went on to become a flight instructor and solo my own students. I experienced the event of a first solo from both perspectives. When I moved to Florida I had a Challenger license plate on my car to remind me every day of the sacrifices brave men and women make. Today it's a US Air Force plate because I used my skills as a pilot to volunteer for the USAF auxiliary and our people overseas in harm's way but I never will forget those astronauts and the day of my first solo.