My "first" solo was in a TH-55 helicopter, back in 1978. My IP was Harry Rotowalt, who we called "Rotorwash" – but not to his face! Mr. Rotowalt was a somewhat older gentleman. To a bunch of 20-year old kids, he seemed to be about 85 years old, and was about 85 lbs of solid gristle and bone – probably one of the toughest old coots I ever met! Anyway, after about 10 hours of dual time in the TH-55, we were at the Hanchey stage field just outside Ft Rucker, Alabama. We landed a bit early for the usual student exchange, and I just assumed he was fed up with me, because nothing I did that day was good enough for him. Then he surprised me by unbuckling his seat belt, turning to me, and yelling over the engine/rotor noise: "Well, you've been trying to kill me all day, so I'm out of here! Now go do three circuits and come back here. And try not to kill yourself!" Then he started to back out of the cockpit, but leaned back in, looked me in the eye and said "You've got this!" and walked away. It was the first (and probably only) time he gave me even a hint that he thought I might make a pilot, LOL...
I remember being more surprised at the lateral CG change with his scrawny butt not in that left seat (helicopters typically are flown from the right seat) than I was about any dramatic increase in performance. I did three good patterns each ending with a nice soft landing, and hovered back over to pick him up. He climbed back in, and uttered the only comment I would ever get from him about my solo flight: "Get out, it's the next guy's turn!" Crusty old coot!
My most vivid memory of Mr. Rotowalt, however, was the day he was flying with one of our bigger student pilots (and ex-football player), and the guy froze on the pedals during a practice autorotation. Mr. Rotowalt shoved that left pedal so hard that it actually broke off the cast-aluminum pedal. To this day, I have no idea how that 85-lb old man managed to overpower a 200-lb ex-football player on those pedals, using only the "stub" left over when the pedal broke off, but he did and they landed (barely) safely. Mr. Rotowalt looked even older after that flight, and the football jock got to ride home on the bus that day...
My "second" solo was at Ft Ord, CA (KOAR - now Marina Municipal since they closed the base). I had joined the Ft Ord Flying Club to pursue fixed-wing flying after returning from a tour in Korea. The club had a couple of Grumman Tigers in the rental fleet that I really liked, and rented for training most of the time. My instructor was Jack Tetrick (COL, USAF, retired). Truly a great instructor and an even better guy. We'd flown about 5-6 hours together, and landed at Watsonville where we did a couple of full-stop landings and a go-around. The next time we landed, he said "Drop me off over at the FBO and go fly this thing around the pattern for a while. Do 3-4 circuits and then come get me." No biggie, since this wasn't my "real" first solo... Like everyone else, I was pretty impressed with the climb performance without Jack on board, but I swear I could hear his voice in my head as I flew the first pattern and did a great landing (one of the best I'd ever done), taxied back and took off for round 2.
Everything was great, and as I flared to land, I could hear Jack's voice in my ear: "Keep that nose up - hold it - hold it..." and then I was slow enough that the elevator could not keep it in the air any longer. Instead of the usual slight 'chirp' as the nose wheel touched down, I heard a horrible "grinding" noise as the nose dropped considerably lower than normal. I was afraid the nose gear was collapsing, so I killed the engine (mixture off, throttle ICO, mags off) as the airplane came to a screeching halt right in the middle of the runway. As I was exiting the aircraft (which was definitely sitting nose-low), I could see Jack running toward me, followed by 3-4 other guys from the FBO building. I climbed down off the wing, and I could see that the nose wheel was sitting at about a 45-degree angle to the fork. Seems the mechanic back at Ft Ord had replaced the nose tire, and forgotten to put the cotter key in the axle bolt. The bolt was also installed backwards, and instead of the wheel rotation tending to "tighten" the bolt, it was slowly loosening the nut, which finally came off. The bolt apparently had backed out just enough to allow the wheel to twist in the fork, and the side-load broke the welds that held it to the axle. We could not budge it. The "locals" from the EAA chapter brought out a little red wagon, and we lifted the nose and set it in the wagon bed so we could clear the runway. Jack has his wife come get us to take us back to Ft Ord so my wife would not get upset, and the mechanic drove over with a new wheel/tire/bolt/axle/cotter-pin to fix the plane. In all the excitement, we completely forgot that it was my first solo, until well after the event...
To this day, I check the security of landing gear bolts before every flight!
