My first solo story by Elmer Carlson, 2002 As the car came down the highway toward me, I stuck out my thumb to indicate that I wanted a ride, however it went right on by and left me standing by the road. I had just been dropped off at Rocky Point lodge by a gentleman who gave me a ride from St. Maries, Idaho, about twelve miles east. My destination was Felts Field, just east of Spokane, Washington, about sixty miles from St. Maries. Several cars went by before one came along and the driver had pity on me and I was on my way. At Plummer he turned south. I wanted to go north so I was afoot again. It was in the middle of July 1945. I had arrived home in St. Maries about three days previous, from Fort Douglas, Utah, on a thirty day furlough from the Army. Our unit had returned from Europe about two months after the surrender of Germany and Italy during the Second World War. After the furlough we were going into training to be shipped to the Far East Theater to help there. Up to now, during my time in the army, I had saved a small fortune of three hundred twelve dollars and twenty-five cents. It wasn't hard to make a decision to use my furlough to spend some of it to learn to fly. Previous to this time all private flight schools had been shut down because of the war, but now they were open and ready for customers. Since I didn't have a car or know how to drive anyway, I decided to hitchhike to Spokane every day for as long as it took me to solo. I finally got enough rides to get to Felts Field. The first flight school I came to was Lamb's Flying Service. It was on the west end of the field just east of the Air National Guard Hanger. I had been to the field just after graduating from High School in 1943. At that time there were about twenty North American B-25 bombers parked next to this hanger. It was really exciting to see a real Army plane up close. Especially since it was the type of plane that bombed Japan just after the United States was forced into the Second World War. This was one of my favorite planes with its big radial engines, twin rudders and slightly gull wings. A friend of mine, Bob Conway, was a crew chief on one in Moffett Field, California. In front of the flying school there were about six beautiful airplanes. They were two place, high wing monoplanes with all metal fuselage and fabric-covered wings. I went into the office and asked if there was anyone who could give me flying lessons. Mrs. Lamb, who was attending the counter, told me they had good facilities and that the price for dual instruction was ten dollars an hour. She was a very nice person and introduced me to a flight instructor by the name of John David Addison. John and I talked for a few minutes about my ambitions and how much time I had available for lessons. I liked him right away and felt happy that I was actually talking to a real flight instructor. He filled out a flight sheet for one of the planes and after showing me what he had done, informed me that it was my responsibility to do this for future flights. I thought, Wow, I'm already part of the crew. We walked outside and over to one of the gorgeous planes. It was a Luscombe Model 8A, with a thirty-five foot wingspan and a sixty-five horsepower Continental engine. The registration number on the wing was NC23544. This was the plane I would fly every time until I soloed. Mr. Addison informed me that before you take a plane into the air for a flight, you must first give it a preflight inspection (the word preflight really gave me a thrill). As we walked around the plane, he pointed out things that a person has to check for. At the same time he was untying the ropes that were tied to each wing and the tail wheel. Last of all he checked the oil level in the engine and then the amount of fuel in the tank. He had me climb into the left side of the cabin. There was a control stick and rudder pedals for each seat. The only brake pedals however, were on the left side where the student sat. There were a lot of instruments on the dashboard but I didn't pay very much attention to them at first. I was so excited to just be in the plane to start with. John stood outside the left door and showed me how to fasten my seat belt. Then he showed me how to apply the brakes. They were what are called heel brakes. There was one for each wheel and you had to push them down with your heels. He climbed in the other side and a man came over and stood in front of the plane and said "Switch off". John repeated "Switch off" after first showing me the switch and that it was in the "Off" position. The man in front then said "Brakes", John told me to put on the brakes as hard as I could. After he saw that I had the brakes on, he said, "Brakes". The man then grabbed the propeller and pulled on the plane as hard as he could to see if he could move it. When he found out that the brakes were actually on, he rotated the engine a few times with the propeller and said "Contact." John turned the switch to the "Both" position and repeated "Contact." Then the attendant pulled the propeller through and the engine started. John told me that the first flight would be a familiarization flight just to get me used to being in the air. He pushed the throttle a little and we started moving. He said the proper taxi speed is about like a fast walk. It looked very easy as I watched him move the pedals and the plane just went where he wanted it to go. We taxied down to the east end of the field and he turned the plane so it was facing the control tower and then asked me to apply the brakes again. When I had done this he pushed the throttle forward and revved the engine up to 1500 rpms. Then he moved the switch from the "Both" position to "Left" and looked at the tachometer, then to "Right" and looked at the tachometer again. Finally he moved it back to "Both". Later he explained that this was the procedure used to check the magnetos to make sure they were both working properly. After the magneto checking procedure, he took the joystick and moved it back and forth several times and then looked at the control tower. After a few seconds a green light appeared from the tower. That indicated we were cleared for take off. John said to release the brakes and he taxied over and lined up on the end of the runway, and after pushing the throttle all the way forward, he started the take-off run. I just sat there wondering what I had let myself in for. The plane started picking up speed and before I could figure out what was going on, we were in the air and climbing out from the runway. I had a feeling of excitement that is hard to describe. The plane was in the air and the ground was getting farther away. I could hardly believe that I was actually flying. We flew out over to the place called the practice area and we went through a few turns. He showed me what the plane does when you pull back on the stick and when you push it forward, what the pedals do, and what straight and level flight was. Then he said for me to take hold of the stick, put my feet on the pedals, and put my right hand on the throttle. Since the pilot in command sat on the left side, you had to handle the stick control with your left hand and the throttle with your right hand because the throttle was in the center of the instrument panel. I grabbed the stick with a death grip and tried to hold it in place. The plane started to go to the left; John said to move the stick to the right a little. When I did this the plane straightened up but started to the right. After a few these oscillations I got the hang of it and could keep it going in a fairly straight line. He asked me to try to turn it to the left. I moved the stick to the left and the plane started left but the nose dropped. When that happened I pulled back on the stick and the plane went up. When I pushed forward the started down again. We went up and down a few times and I told John to take it back and get it under control. I was beginning to wonder if I could fly the darn thing. It seemed like things happened so fast, and there was no "in between". We flew around for a while and John told me that I was normal and that I shouldn't expect to know all about how to fly the first hour. Then we went back and landed. I don't remember much about it except that it seemed we were very close to the ground before we got to the airport. He said we had been out for one hour and that I could log it as dual instruction. While filling out the flight sheet back in the office, John told me that before I could solo a plane I had to have a physical examination. He said that any doctor could do it but it had to be on the form that he would give me. Also, hr said I should buy a logbook so the hour could be logged and he could sign that it was official. The flight school just happened to have logbooks, so I bought one and had the necessary entry filled in. I stepped out of the office door and felt another wave of excitement come over me. I was the proud possessor of a logbook with one hour of dual time logged and a form to take to my doctor for a physical. Before leaving the office I told John that I would try to get back as soon as I had taken the physical. I walked down the road toward the highway to St. Maries and tried to remember all of the things that had happened that day. The thing that impressed me the most was how sensitive the controls were. It seemed like you just looked at the stick and the plane did something. I remembered almost nothing of the flight except that it was the most exciting thing in my life. I told myself that I had better pay attention and apply myself if I was going to learn to fly. The next hours of dual instruction was a lot more interesting than the first. John had me take care of the procedure for starting the engine and then gave me directions on how to taxi the plane out to the area where we checked the magnetos. After we checked the mags, he said to pull out the knob called "Carburetor Heat" to make sure it was working. After we got the green light, I taxied the plane over to the end of the runway. John told me to follow him through as he proceeded to make the take-off run. It didn't seem all that difficult. In the air he gave me the controls as soon as we got to the practice area and gave me instructions for making coordinated turns using the stick and rudder controls together. This time the plane seemed to be a little easier to control. During the second hour we did straight and level flight, banks to the left and right, climbs and glides. My apprehension faded a little when he showed me how the airplane would fly all by itself when you let go of the controls. Also he had me wiggle my toes and just sit back and relax. It wasn't all that easy to relax but I tried. While flying back to the field he instructed me about the traffic pattern and how you enter it when you are planning to make a landing. Also that when you are on what is called the base leg of the pattern, It is necessary to wiggle the wings enough so that the man in the tower can see them move when he gives the green or red light. If he gives you a green light you are cleared to land. If for some reason you get a red light you must go around and try again. A white light indicated you should return to the Flight School Office. The next two hours were spent learning how to stall the plane and glide it. He explained that the stall maneuver was a very important maneuver because it was what happened when an airplane lands. The engine doesn’t stall in this maneuver. The plane quits flyingby throttling the engine back and then putting backpressure on the stick to execute it. This pulls the tail down and the nose up so that the plane slows down. The farther back you pull it the slower it gets until it is going too slow to produce enough lift to keep flying. When that happens, the plane drops, but before it drops it shakes a little. This is called the “break” and you can feel it in the seat of your pants. John told me that a good landing is to stall the plane six inches off the ground and let it drop from there. I thought, “Ya, Right,” but I found out later that he was right although it seemed so difficult then. We spent lots of time flying straight and level and doing banks to the left and right, and also what is called "slow flight", a maneuver where you throttle back and try to fly as slow as you can without stalling or losing altitude. It helped when doing what is called, "shooting landings". In this maneuver, you would glide down to the airport as if to land, go through to landing procedure and as soon as the wheels touched the ground apply full power and start another take off run. We started doing this during the fourth hour. I could hardly believe how docile the plane had become in just four short hours. Needless to say I was very happy with my progress. John kept encouraging me that every thing was all right. Whenever I would goof-up he would very patiently tell me what I was doing wrong and then show me how to correct it. He never did bawl me out or get up tight about anything. One time I told him that on one of my rides I had while hitch hiking, the driver had the car up to one hundred miles per hour. He told me the only time he wanted to go that fast was while we were flying. Later on one of our flights he took over the controls and nosed the plane over slightly and let the speed build up to one hundred miles per hour and showed me how easy and safe it was to go that fast in a light plane. The normal cruse speed for the Luscombe was eighty miles per hour. When I arrived for the sixth hour’s lesson, John had two parachutes laid out for us. He said this is the day we would do spins and spin recoveries. Can you imagine the thrill I felt when this news sunk in? I could hardly wait to get into the air. We had to take the seat cushions out because the parachutes were seat packs. I don't recall much of the flight to the practice area but the spins were terrific. We climbed to six thousand feet. The engine is throttled back to idle and the airplane is put into a normal glide. Starting a stall enters the spin and just when the stall breaks, you kick in either right or left rudder. The next thing you know the plane is spinning and what a thrill it is. Recovery is real easy, just apply opposite rudder and neutralize the stick. When the spin stops, slight forward pressure is applied until flying speed is attained and then you just ease back on the stick and give it a little throttle and the next thing you know, the plane is flying straight and level. John did a couple spins and then told me to try one. I thought, "Boy o boy, this is going to be great." I could hardly believe that it was so easy. They were real fun and I asked John if I could do a couple more. All together I did two to the right and two to the left before he said that's enough. He was satisfied that I could recover from a spin if I ever got into one. I said to myself "I'll get into more of them.” Just South of Dishman, Washington, about three miles, there was a field of about two hundred acres. Sometime in the past someone had laid out a runway. The field was smooth and there were very few trees on it. During our practice sessions, John had me land on this field once in a while. This was the area we practiced landings for the next two hours of dual. I don't know how many landings we shot, but on several he had me come to a full stop and taxi back to the end and start a take-off from a dead stop. I didn't feel that I could handle the plane all that well, but about half way through the eighth hour he said for me to stop about half way down the runway and let him out. The feeling of joy and misery is hard to describe. When he got out and tied up his seat belt, he told me to do one take-off and landing and if I felt good to go ahead and do two more. He also told me that it would handle a little different without his weight in the plane. I get goose bumps now as I am writing this story, just thinking about the feelings that I had on that first solo take-off fifty-seven years ago. The first flight was without incident so he waved for me to go ahead and do two more. On the second flight, I came in a little too high and started the flare-out before I should have. The plane bounced and I was back in the air. It felt so much more responsive with just me in there. I tried to remember everything I had learned up to that point and succeeded in getting it under control and starting the flare-out again. This time it stayed down and I taxied back to the starting point and made the last take off and landing without any difficulty. I stopped and picked up John and we started back to Felts Field. The feeling I felt then was one of joy and confidence. John told me that he was not too worried about the landing that I bounced because I had recovered from landings like that when we were dual and he had not helped on the recovery at that time. He also said that a person has to make some bad landings so he will know how to recover. Everyone at the office was excited and congratulated me that I had completed my first solo flight but I don't remember anyone cutting off my shirttail or anything like that. I didn't care anyway, just so I knew how to fly by myself. Mrs. Lamb told me that if I wanted to buy more time, they had a deal where they would sell ten hours of solo flight for the price of nine hours. I purchased ten hours because I still had some of my furlough left. I wanted to get more time in before I had to return the San Antonio, Texas and maybe a trip to the orient.