first solo at 5500 hours

I am thinking of what to write next. I want to do a nice post about the time I soloed a DC-3! I want to do a post about the time I soloed a twin beech also. There was a turbine twin beech and of course the piston twin beech. It seems I can't tell a story without at least referring to College Park. In 1970 I was flying at College Park renting Cubs for $10 per hour wet. This was when I first learned about the Twin Beech. Brinkerhoff had a very nice G Model Beech which he used for charter and personal transportation. It would barely fit into College Park. Every takeoff and every landing was a spectacle. Everyone would stop what they were doing and watch. Especially the takeoffs. The airport was much tighter in those days. More trees, worse surface, dirt taxiways, patchy runway, shorter runway. He would never carry a load out of College Park. He would only take off west, over the wires and tracks. Trees too tall on the other end. I've seen those trees eat airplanes. That's a story for another post. He would go down to the end of 31 (which was the runway in those days). He would be in the rough overrun of weeds, gravel, dirt, sand, ruts, woodchips. This would add him another 50ft. to the 2150 he had. But there were obstacles and a possible tailwind. You'd see him rev up and roll. You'd see clouds of smoke and dust. You'd hear the wonderful roar and then the blare. Then the tail would come up and it would be so high that you thought he was overraked and would get the props. You'd think he was never going to unstick, and finally he'd pull it off, but just into ground effect. Now you think he's never going to clear those wires. At the last second he hauls it up over the wires and as the wheels pass the wires they are starting to retract as if to tuck themselves away from the wires. The flat pitch high rpm blades blare again at you as he climbs away. You shake your head in mystery and you smile. I was a cub renter. I thought, "I'll never check out in a plane like that!" But in the winter of 1976-1977 I found myself in Pittsburgh flying a BE-18T which is a taildragger turbine Twin Beech on a U.S. Mail run which went to Philly and back. Sometimes, a run to Ohare with Emery Airfreight, which I hated. One day there was a broken plane and some switching around had to be done. The Company was "Great Western Airlines", out of Tulsa, Ok. My plane was being switched for the night's run to Philly. Of course I didn't care. But my roomate BD, was a veteran with the company and he noticed the N number of my new plane. It was a piston Beech. "Hey Luther, they got you set up in a piston Beech tonight. "What?. They can't" "They did, you better call." So a bunch of phone calls later and it turns out all company pilots must be qualified in all three types of planes they had. They're mad at me for not being checked out in the piston. "You will come to Tulsa as soon as possible and fly the piston and the Baron, and you should have notified us earlier that you were not qualified for tonight's run". "Sorry" The weekend comes and it's pretty weather. Akron, Oh. is a maintenance base for us and I meet the check airman and the piston Beech there. We fly around and pull back a few engines and do some airwork. After we come back, the check airman "Walters" (very good man) says, "Well you're done, would you like to fly it around yourself?" The smile I gave him that said yes, was the smile you have as a young man when your date says "why don't we just go up to your place tonight?" In those days, the Beech was standard. Lots of pilots were checked out. I really felt like I had joined the club. He didn't have to solo me. It was a check out called a Part 135 equip. check. He was just being kind. I never did get the Baron check out.