The Day I Soloed James

Back in the College Park days around 1972 I was a hot shot neophyte flight instructor. I actually knew everything. My best friend James was my best friend ever. He was bright, and very good natured. He was one of those guys who could operate machinery very well. He had gone on a few flights while hanging around at College Park. Mostly with me. Nothing formal. Somewhere along the line he got a logbook and I had put a few entries in it. He could fly pretty good though. One day I told him he ought to get a Student License so he could solo. And that if he paid for the plane rental I would teach him enough to solo. He thought about this. A long time went by and I was surprised one day when he showed up with the license. As soon as I had time I flew with him in the 150. He did great as usual. I made sure he could do a good go around and I turned him loose. My friend Butterfield was there, also soloing a student. I said, "Hey John, watch my guy he's great." James took off in the 150 and looked great. He turned crosswind and he turned away from the airport, and he flew away. Out of sight. I said, "Shoot I'm goin' to the office and try an' get him on the radio". As I head to the office I can hear Butterfield saying something like "yea Lou that guy is great, just great". No joy on the radio. As a matter of fact we never much used the radio. So now what? We wait. First solo! Damn where is he. It seemed like hours but he was back in 30 minutes. Into the pattern, nice landing , taxi in shut down. He was smiling. I shook his hand. " James, where the hell did you go"? "Just flew around, went over to Freeway" (Freeway was an airport nearby, and not a long runway). "Freeway? You went to Freeway? Did you land?" "Yea" "My God James! What did you do at Freeway?" "Nothin', just took back off again." "James, you scared the crap outa me. Why didn't you just fly a pattern and land like you were supposed too"? "You and I always went to Freeway". I was pretty sure I'd told James to fly the circuit and do everything just the way we'd been doing it to a full stop and all the standard first solo stuff. He kind of had me thinking that since I hadn't specifically told him not to fly away that he had done nothing wrong. So what could I say? My best friend had just soloed and done an amazing job. I had to admit I was impressed. He had about 4 hours in his logbook.