First solo in the bag!!

After long last, it finally arrived! The day of my first solo flight. Well, Dejavu actually... I'll explain.
I was initially scheduled to do my first solo last weekend on the 26th but since the original instructor who signed me off wasn't able to work with me, I was scheduled with another. Since he hadn't signed me off on the previous flight he had to take me through all the basic maneuvers needed to sign me off himself.
Initially all started out well, but after completing a series of stall maneuvers I wasn't feeling too well, so we heading back to home base.
Once we got there the winds started picking up and since my stomach still wasn't doing too well we canceled the solo flight for the day. I was a little bummed, but hey, better not to fly when you're not feeling well.

Fast forward to May 2nd.... I showed up for my scheduled flight time at 9am Saturday morning and met with my flight instructor who went up with me for 3 times around the traffic pattern to make sure I knew what I was doing. He thought I did excellent so we taxied back to the flight school where he hopped out, endorsed my flight log and wished me good luck.

I climbed in the plane, did my pre-start checklist and fired up the engine. I then checked the local ATIS (Weather) and contacted Peachtree ground control. I told them I was a student pilot on first solo and was staying in the traffic pattern.
They cleared me to taxi to runway 20 right and I began to move the airplane, this time as "Pilot in Command" as it's officially called.
I taxied to the runup area (side location to the runway used for preflight checklists) and began to go through the runup checklist. I then called ground again and confirmed preflight was complete. I got clearance to taxi to and hold short of runway 20R and to contact the tower.
Once I contacted the tower they cleared me for takeoff and I proceeded onto the runway. I lined up with the stripes, paused, took a deep breath and increased the throttle to full and began my takeoff roll.
Shortly thereafter I was moving down the runway, picking up airspeed and passing the standard 55 knots and started pulling back on the yolk. The aircraft responded and started taking off and I was on my way towards the sky for the first time completely in control of an aircraft with no one else sitting beside me. This of course put a little smirk across my face as I was realizing how F*&%^G cool this was... :)

I continued my climb to traffic pattern altitude or slightly below as some cloud cover had rolled in and continued on my right turn to downwind. The tower contacted me and told me to extend my downwind leg and they would call when I could turn to base. So, I continued my downwind leg for a while and started wondering if they'd forgotten about me... Soon I saw why they did when I saw a jet coming the other direction for a landing. When it passed by the tower called and cleared me to land on runway 20R.
I turned back, lined up with the runway, put in flaps at the appropriate intervals and airspeeds and completed my first landing, not perfect by any means, but a landing nonetheless.
I received clearance to taxi back for another round and proceeded to taxi back to the other end of the runway for another go. The next 2 rounds were fairly standard and no major deviations to note.
Once my 3 required rounds were complete (my landing on the 3rd round was pretty darn good, my instructor confirmed the same) I went for another 2 rounds and then taxied back to the flight school for a total of 5 rounds in the traffic pattern and a successfull first solo flight!!

Back at the flight school I was congratulated by my instructor and the other instructors in the office and got to ring the bell which signified a completed solo flight. A nice tradition for the flight school. I got out my first solo t-shirt for them to cut the shirt tail on (old pilot tradition) and had everyone sign it. They asked to keep it for a little while to get the other instructors who were not present to sign it as well.

Over all everything went very well and I had one major accomplishment in the bag. I proceeded home to share in the celebrations with my lovely wife and a couple neighbors and was finally able to smoke the Montecristo cigar I'd been saving for this purpose.

This weekend (weather permitting) I should be able to complete a few more hours of solo flight time as I have to complete a local area solo which means I can fly around north of Atlanta area for a couple hours and rack up some solo time.
After that I can continue on my cross country flight which should take me up to Anderson, SC and back.
Once I have my 10 hours of solo flight time then I'll be going for my final check ride and I'll be DONE! Somthing I'm very much looking forward to....