Mark did 30 minutes of solo flight time at Long Beach International Airport on Saturday morning.
He took off from Helistream at John Wayne Airport and flew from there to LGB with Perry, his instructor, in the copter with him. They landed at LGB, where Perry exited the copter, put Mark through some hover exercises and them gave him the signal to "Go!".
The film is a 5 minute clip of one solo pattern around the airport. The 40 seconds of hovering before he begins forward motion are standard procedure as he calls the tower for clearance to take off. Once given clearance, he begins to fly forward, low over the ground, and then begins to gain altitude. For the rest of the flight, he is somewhere within 500 ft.
As he comes back in to land, you can see the small figure of Perry standing to the left of the landing pad. After setting down, Mark would wait for the thumbs up to pick back up again, where he would call the tower for clearance, and repeat the pattern.
Jake and I were able to watch him in action, from the very comfortable lobby of Airflite Aviation, a private luxury terminal for chartered and personal aircraft (Mark says "fancy jets"). When he had finished 30 straight minutes of solo flight, he picked up Perry and they landed at our terminal, and came inside for cookies, congratulations and hugs.
Jake and I were then given permission to stand outside to watch his final takeoff and swing around the building, and watched as he disappeared into the sky, heading back to John Wayne. With him driving up from John Wayne, and us from Long Beach, we met in the middle at Boudin in South Coast Plaza, for some celebratory sourdough bread and discussion.
His next solo will be 60 minutes, after which he'll be about 7 1/2 hrs away from the minimum to test for his license. Go Mark!
