Solo Flight

Below is an e-mail from Kirsten regarding her first Iraqi solo student. And too quickly clarify the 2nd half of the e-mail below, in the Air Force after you solo for the first time, they young pilots have a tradition of throwing you in a pool. Sometimes they are nice enough to take your boots off before throwing you in. I need to find the videos I have of Kirsten getting dumped and post them. She said she would post some pictures and videos on Snapfish so when she does I'll post those.


So I had my first solo today. My student, Jasim, is a 29 year old former microbiologist who worked for the Ministry of Health before joining the Iraqi Air Force. I've flown with him on three other occasions and he's a pretty good pilot! He actually went to his commander and requested to solo with me. He wanted to be the first Iraqi male to be solo'd by the female American pilot. Needless to say he was super excited about his solo today. The way it worked is that we took off together into the pattern. He had to fly a pattern breakout (where he exists the patterns and reenters), a go around and a landing. So that's exactly what we did, after the full stop, we taxied off of the active runway, did a 180 on the taxiway and stoped prior to the runway. I gave him my wings, wished him luck and got out. He did tell me not to worry... at least 5 times before I made it out the door. It was cute. He then taxied out, took off and flew three patters. They are required to do go arounds and then one full stop. He taxied back and had about 20 of his friends waiting for him.

His friends grabbed him, and I do mean GRABBED him out of the airplane and drug him literally through the mud. They found a nice muddy puddle and dragged him back and forth threw it about 10 times before stuffing a large rock in his mouth and moving on. They drug him over to the tire and sat him in it. They then proceeded to dump three buckets of muddy water ontop of him and finally poured sand down his back. As gross as it was, it was hilarious and Im glad to have been a part of it.

Love you tons!!
Kirsten