village called Kusutka, about 30 minutes away. One of the people is a fellow missionary, but he lives in Quito. He brings small teams of Ecuadorians down every month or so to go into the jungle and do medical work, teaching, and evangelizing. To my knowledge, no one told my passengers that they were my first "victims." You have to be carefull with a non-flying public in what you say to them, so that they will not only trust the little machine that is flying them, but also the pilot at the controls. It was a great feeling to finally be the master of the cockpit again. My flight was very uneventfull, just like we wanted it to be. The weather was beautiful, which also helped lower the butterfly factor before takeoff.
I had the missionary that I flew take this picture of me with some of the villagers of Kusutka. The man on my right in the yellow shirt was also one of my passengers.
After I returned to Shell, there was a big throng awaiting me. Keeping stride with aviation culture, my instructor Chad and Brooklyn had a great time hosing me down in the celebration of my first solo. I had everybody else in the hangar too afraid to participate in such a dousing. Chad was the only one man enough to actually step out of the hangar and let me have it. It was all a great time.
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