This past Friday seemed like any other day of the week, really. Andy picked me up after he finished at work, and his friend Andy Fowler was along, so I figured they were heading to the airport. Andy hadn't been in the best of moods because the rain had been putting a damper on his plan to take his solo flight. I rode to the airport with the two, but told my Andy that I was going to head home to get some things ready for the wedding I was shooting the next day (said wedding will appear on the blog soon). He didn’t really mind because he can’t take passengers anyway. I went into the MichiganFlyers office to say hi to Jayne, Andy’s instructor, and then planned on heading home. Little did I know that my plans for a mundane Friday evening were about to change when Jayne mentioned that she was going to let Andy solo! I seriously felt my stomach drop like an overprotective mother about this flying business! Solo! As in, fly, the airplane, on his own?! Oh dear… Andy and Jayne went about their normal routine before flying together, and I headed home just as I told Andy I would. Little did he know that I would be back, but with my boatload of camera gear! Photographing the whole event made me a little less nervous, though the thought of crash landings and how horrible it would be to photograph my own husband's death did flash through my brain at one point.

Andy and Jayne did seven touch and gos before she surprised him by telling him that she was going to hop out, and that he was going to fly on his own. She told him to do two touch and gos and that if they felt good, to do a third. Andy was oblivious to the fact that the entire rest of the crew; myself, his friends and fellow pilots, Andy and Lindsay, and fellow Nutshell coworkers, Mason and Chris, were all watching the whole time! When Andy landed, he was smiling from ear to ear; he mentioned a few times that his face hurt but he couldn’t stop smiling. He said it was the happiest day of his life, but quickly retracted to say that our wedding was, but it’s okay with me either way. I’m incredibly proud of him for taking the leap to become a private pilot!

Here’s a little blurb that Jayne wrote about Andy finding us all waiting for him at the terminal:

As jubilant Andy Blyler taxied toward the terminal on Bravo, he caught sight of his wife, Stevie, friends and fellow Michigan Flyers, Andy Fowler and Lindsay Snider, as well as other coworkers from Nutshell (one of the places where Andy works), all of whom had been flying as TGIF fun. Andy Fowler immediately sent a tweet: “Just watched @ablyler take his first solo! Three gorgeous touch-and-gos, with a big crowd gathered to watch!!”  I (Jayne, CFI) had tipped them off! A “full stop” on 120.3 let them know that Andy was going to solo.  We gathered on the ramp for a raucous Salutatory party with photos (of course a professional photographer couldn’t pass up the opportunity to capture such a happy moment!) and videos; the best Congratulatory First Solo ever!