A couple pictures from Kyle's Solo Flight - October 2nd, 2025

We were pretty sure that Kyle was going to make his Solo flight (he had recently passed his "check-out") and his instructor Michael was nice enough to tell Kyle that "today would be the day." The original plan was, after taking off from Broomfield, to do it at Longmont airport, so I drove up there ... but then there was an in-flight change of plans to do it at Boulder since it had less traffic. So I raced down there and fortunately arrived just after Kyle had completed a few "test" circuits with Michael, so I saw them taxi to the tarmac and Michael jump out ... it was JUST Kyle in the plane now! ;-)

I walked out on the tarmac to join Michael - super nice guy who was delightful to chat with as we watched Kyle do three takeoffs ... and three landings!

Landings/takeoffs were on runway 8 and since it was early evening, the light wasn't ideal with the sun to the West. Sorry for the cluttered background - Boulder has a glider operation on the north side of the runway. And minor bummer (for photos) that Kyle was on the "other" side of the plane. But more important than "perfect photos" was that it was very cool to get pics of Kyle's Solo and awesome to be there in person.

Afterwards, we had a celebratory dinner of chicken & rice ... and washed it down with champagne! ;-)

Here's some pictures from Kyle's instructor Michael. Note he used a slow shutter speed, which results in a sense of motion as you track the plane by panning the camera. This is often used for props (and even more so for helicopters), since it results in a "round disc" versus a "stopped" blade. I opted for a fast shutter speed in my pics, although I did switch to 1/250th for the last set. As with many things in photography, there is no "right or wrong way" - just different approaches that provide different artistic renditions - for instance, taking pics of flying birds at very slow shutter speeds can be wild.
GREAT pics Michael!