Well. the maiden flight of my P-51 PTS went well. She flys great!

I've been doing buddy box training with my instructor (about 8 flights) but it has been going slow as he sometimes doesn't show up at the flying field. After another no show today I decieded to take her up myself solo. Actually I intended to just do a short low altitude hop flight and landing but after she got airborne I thought to myself..."heck, just go for it!". So I did.

I made a climbing left turn into the pattern and circled her around for a landing. The landing was a little rough into the tall grass at the side of the field but nothing broke... success!

I had been practicing the past few days using the simulator and I feel that this helped me a lot.

Bruce Riddell
First solo flight: 23 April 2006