At some point it's going to be the 2nd day.
Look, this is important. There's no "soft peddling" flight training. There's no "let's not do this because there's risk". It's immersion training and hard core, at that.
FAA training requirements mandate that no student pilot may operate an aircraft solo before 10 hours of instruction. I did it at exactly 10, the average is probably around 12. That's not a lot of instruction. But you're either going to "get it" or you're not. It's serious business and the training process is very much designed to identify and weed out those who can't be easily trained.
First solo is an interesting ritual. Audiences are encouraged. When you land the mob cuts whatever shirt you're wearing from your body and it gets hung up on a wall. Because when you land, you've done something. Something that the overwhelming majority of people will never do and that most could never really conceive of.
I remember mine. I did a few touch & go approaches with my instructor, then landed and parked. He got out of the plane and walked away, I powered it up and taxied back to the runway and took off.
Taking off, by the way, is pretty easy. It's so easy that, on your very first introductory flight most instructors will let you do it by yourself, without their hands guiding the yoke or hovering over the throttle.
Landing is very much a different thing. Landing is hard. All. The. Time. And I vividly remember, as I turned onto a short final approach alone for the very first time, thinking to myself, "well, you have to do this or you'll die." Most people will never encounter that situation, a circumstance where, if you f*ck up just a little, you wind up actually dead.
The immersion, the baptism by fire, continue all the way through your training. Your first instrument landing. First night flight, and night landing. Your first engine-out takeoff. The first time you manage an approach in a large, fast aircraft (mine was a King Air 250, the biggest plane I've ever flown) where the approach speed is nearly 200 mph and you have to kiss the runway at a buck forty.
Right or wrong, the particular Army unit was accustomed to training in the DCA area. They did it on the daily. They did it playing chicken with commercial jets full of people who fully expected to be getting on with their lives once the plane landed. Again, you can question the sanity of it, overall - and I certainly do - but that's what they did.
So it was always, at some point, going to be the second day.
By the way, for those who aren't aware... If there are two people in the cockpit then the person not at the controls has the primary responsibility for handing the radios, engaging with non-flight controls (gear, flaps, throttles, etc.) and watching for traffic. So, for those who are really invested in the distinction, if a girl was flying the helicopter than a guy was responsible for the other stuff.
