I soloed on my seventh or eighth flight, late Feb. early Mar. Was on the first
gal. of fuel, I'm now working on my tenth gal... I soloed with my Avistar/LA-46..
No simulator... Wait a min. I did use the free sim., RC Sim.. It was not very
good and I was using the key board.. So it did not help me stick wise, But it
did help me in plane orientation... Another thing that helped me was the clubs
training tapes and changing from a thumb to finger pinch on the sticks. My
first evaluation flight was BAD!! After playing with the sim. and watching the
tapes.. My trainer said it's like night then day on my second flight on the club
trainer..

... The tapes got me to face the direction the plane was flying so that I'd move
the sticks the direction I wanted the plane to go:-)