Oh Yeah!, I Soloed too!

How in the world did I let the blog miss my solo? Bad blog! Bad!
I guess other than my buddy Robert, not many people solo after only a week of instruction, but that's what I did.
I did it as a "DAWN PATROL".
SportPlanesFlorida.com is really busy right now. Jim Julius warned me at signup that there were several other guys on accelerated schedules after the 19th. Marc is down on vacation for 8 days, Chris is also time limited. So the pattern is full and the airplane is scheduled from 8 AM to 6PM. I have a 4-6 slot everyday. If the weather is good, that's great because nobody's behind me and I can play until civil twilight. But like every other place in the peninsula, or the world, the really primo time is dawn. Smooth low winds and little traffic.
So Sherman arranged for my solo at 7AM Tuesday. Normally, the student doesn't know about the solo date or time, but mine was unusually obvious due to the rigmarole of getting the student ticket as the last item.
I brought Micky along, and the weather was perfect! Final signoffs completed, and preflighted.
It felt weird not having Sherman in the seat. the visibility to the right was improved drastically. Ready for taxi, I called ground and announced that I was student pilot on his first solo, had the ATIS info and was ready. They cleared me to 32 with the normal hold at 22. I've learned to leave the left shoulder harness just a tad loose so I can set the parking brake, but I forgot and had to loosen it to set the brake for the runups. Ready to go, called the tower and waited for another guy to land.
Then it was my turn. They still had the runway lighting on which made the scene even prettier and since I was cleared, I did a rather fast taxiout and did not stop. A smooth increase to full power and rotate at around 40 the aircraft flew off smoothly at 60 and we were a rocket ship! The Remos shot up at 1100 feet per minute and way before the intersection I was established cross wind and nearly at pattern height. Throttled back to stay below 100 and settle in downwind. The nice thing about a controlled field is that I don't have to announce my position. The tower calls the turns. Or at least that's what they did.
cleared to land, I turned base and final and had a really pretty setup. The GPS lady said, "Five Hundred" in that sexy voice just as I'm sure to make the field gliding, my speed is at 80 and the Rotax is idling. Ten thousand feet of MY runway awaits, but I'll only use maybe 500 feet total.
Ooze down fly just above the overrun and touch on the numbers, hold the nose off and let it drop well below flying speed, then add power and right rudder because of the aluminum magnet they put in the left side all runways and we're screaming back up. Left turn before the intersection, and I'm looking at the bench outside of Dolphin for Micky. She must be inside.
On downwind and do it again, only even smoother. This is really nice when the wind isn't slamming you around. I purposely extended the climbout to get even closer to Dolphin for a look. Still no redheads jumping up and down. Bummer!
The third approach, I tell tower that "Nine Romeo Echo will be full stop." and made a truly slick landing. Then as I'm expediting down the runway to get to A5 and my turn the tower tells me "Good Job!"
It's rare as hen's teeth for a cab operator to have any opinion, so I'm tickled to death and say "Thank You, sir!"
Taxi in as Micky and Sherman come out of the lobby where they had watched and monitored the radio. Good... they heard the controller!
Too bad the Flip camera fell down on the first landing because the first approach was a beaut!