ORIGINAL: darock
Yeah, looking at the account is intriguing. It's also somewhat puzzling.
The account starts off at Nightone's 2nd and 3rd solo flights. And seems to describe what excellent results he got with them. And then the account seems to shift to the first one of them, or maybe to the first solo flight ever. Truth is, the flight he calls his "first flight" could also be his first ever flight since it wasn't described as his first solo flight. And that first flight sounds like it was on a previous day, but that's not clear either. whatever...........
Here is a timeline:
8/17 Bought the Plane (Alpha 60)
8/18 Got the Cockpit Master flight sim installed but didn't play with it more than a couple of minutes. Only took off and tried to trim it up to see if it worked. Another family member played on it for a little while after I got the controls working and semi-trimmed.
8/20 Went to the field and I had 1 flight with an instructor on a buddy box. He took off and I landed. This was my first flight ever on the plane.
8/21 - 9/6 Had several more flights with the instructor on the buddy box. Take off everytime and have had about 10-12 landings. Instructor unplugs the buddy box and I have my 1st solo flight. (with him standing near me)
9/8 - Played on G3 for a couple of hours
9/9 - Played on AFPD for a couple of hours
9/10-9/13 Played on APFD more and G3 once.
9/14 Went to the flying field. 1st flight of the afternoon resulted in 4 prop killing landings and some pretty crappy flying. Second flight (or session) yield better results and after one of the landing I soloed again (2nd one ever). I proceeded to land 3 times each direction, figures 8s, etc. and got my blue dot. Soloed for the the 3rd time on my 3rd and last flight of the day and brought it down sooner than normal because it was getting so dark.
Only previous flying experience was self taught on my 3-channel (no Ailerons) Eaglet 50 over 20 years ago. Had several flights before it "flew away" one day. (no controls) I know now that it was 99% a battery issue as I didn't even charge it that much back then. (or check voltages)
Fear can be a great teacher and the fear of crashing the plane just doesn't happen in the Sim.