ignatz@ihuxx.UUCP (Dave Ihnat, Chicago, IL) (05/19/84)
Ok, folks...here's your chance to settle a friendly dispute (and, incidentally, maybe save/cost someone a shirt.) I, and many others, have always thought the ritual of having your shirttail cut off after your first solo to be a wide-spread thing. A friend of mine who just soloed swears by all that's holy (and most that isn't) that this is balderdash, and it must just be a military thing. His fiancee backs this, claiming that 'no one at Palwaukee has ever done this', or at least that she knows of. Meanwhile, the chief pilot, and all the staff, at Air Aurora maintain, 'oh, yeah...you're right. We do it all the time.' Who's right? Is it some arcane ritual spawned in the sodden brains of the military zoomies? Or is my friend mistaken (and trying to save his shirttail), and it's a time-honored tradition? Please mail to me, indicating whether you've ever heard of this ritual, where (military/civilian aviation), and is it still practiced where you normally fly. If anyone else is interested, let me know and I'll send you the results after the responses trickle to a halt; as usual, if enough want the results, I'll post them. Thanks for helping, Dave Ihnat ihuxx!ignatz
cfiaime@ihnp4.UUCP (Jeff Williams) (05/21/84)
Dave's friend (who did not get the tail cut off of his shirt) is one of my students. The practice of cutting the shirttail goes back many years, probably to the military. However, it seems that now the military types douse the newly hatched aviator in water. So, when do I cut the shirttail of one of my students? When the practice is in vogue at the school where I am teaching. As an example, when I was teaching at Augusta, Kansas, we DID cut the shirttail for our MALE students. Our FEMALE students were asked to produce an article of underclothing on which we would write the date of the solo. This practice dying out because flight schools are trying to present a "professional" image. But there is something neat about going to the old flight school and seeing a collection of shirttails from the mid-1950s. What do I do for my first solo students? Every one is told the same thing I was told by my first instructor. "Remember, this thing is going to climb like a raped ape!" It may not be much, but they remember it. Jeff Williams AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, IL ihnp4!cfiaime
ron@BRL-VGR.ARPA (05/22/84)
From: Ron Natalie <ron@BRL-VGR.ARPA> No, it's widespread around some older groups. We didn't do it, buty the group down the hall did it. Some of them even had special shirts that had tails preprinted with blanks to fill in the date of solo and the tail number of the airplane and a dotted line where to cut. Sort of takes the point out of it though. -Ron
ron@BRL-TGR.ARPA (05/23/84)
From: Ron Natalie <ron@BRL-TGR.ARPA> I'll never forget my first solo at Jefferson County Airport in Colorado. The tower's line as soon as I had made my first turn was "Doesn't it fly a whole lot better without Dale (my instructor) in it?" -Ron