age at solo vs hours to solo

Brad W said:
In this other thread Jim K posted something I found fascinating
I don't recall hearing that rule of thumb before.
Let me see... I was 24 years old + almost a month
and soloed at about 14 hours... fairly close to half....ratio approx 0.58
that was over a period of about 3 months...and one of those months right in the middle I didn't fly at all.....
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30 years old, 23.2 hours, so my ratio is 0.77
I am a slow learner, but the training also included 3 hours of simulated emergencies, 3 hours of spins and 1 hr of presolo checkride with a different instructor. Additionally, all of this was done from a Class C airport.
 
46 years old, 16.5 hours spread over a year. CFI told me after flight 4 (at about 6.5 hours) that if I'd passed the solo written he'd have soloed me that day. But that was 2004 and 4 hurricanes and a house later I picked up in 2005. So probably not representative...
 
sarangan said:
30 years old, 23.2 hours, so my ratio is 0.77
I am a slow learner, but the training also included 3 hours of simulated emergencies, 3 hours of spins and 1 hr of presolo checkride with a different instructor. Additionally, all of this was done from a Class C airport.
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Flying out of a Class C now (trained at a class D) I can say that definitely slows progress. I'd guess I tack about .4 Hobbes onto each flight from the class C.
 
jsstevens said:
Flying out of a Class C now (trained at a class D) I can say that definitely slows progress. I'd guess I tack about .4 Hobbes onto each flight from the class C.
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Clearance delivery, ground and tower was routine from day one, and I assumed everyone had do to it, until I discovered there were some airports with none of these.
 
sarangan said:
Clearance delivery, ground and tower was routine from day one, and I assumed everyone had do to it, until I discovered there were some airports with none of these.
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Yes, that coupled with taxi distances and times are what adds it in.
 
35 years old, solo in 8

my son was 16, solo at 21 hours, but he had to wait for his birthday.
 
I was reading about the aircraft designer John Thorp. When he was at Lockheed, he was responsible (among other projects) for the model 33 Little Dipper "Air Trooper". Conceived as a single seat plane for air assaults similar to parachute assaults. Dirt simple airplane. A demo was held at the Pentagon around 1942. A troop was selected to do the flight and it was reported that he had zero flight experience. Landed OK, but the concept was dropped.
I can only imagine the horror of leading an airborne assault with a company sized unit of low time "Air Troopers".
 
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Redneckpilot said:
I don’t totally disagree with this.

Something I have noticed among millennials and generation z is generally they aren’t nearly as comfortable with operating machinery as previous generations. I think this also plays into higher pre-solo hours.
There aren’t nearly as many people coming off the farms as there used to be. In my case I grew up on a farm and was operating large tractors and various equipment in my early teens as well as driving. An airplane was another machine.

Look at cars.
How many people student pilot age have ever learned to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission, drum brakes, manual choke, no power steering? A generation ago this was the norm. People inadvertently developed some degree of innate mechanical ability through everyday life.

I don’t think my situation wasn’t unusual for my generation or the previous generations of people learning to fly.
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I collect old logbooks. What was expected was a lot less than now. A lot less. An innate ability doesn’t mean you know how to fly. I own a logbook in which a student solo’d in just an hour and a half.
 
Broccoli said:
I own a logbook in which a student solo’d in just an hour and a half.
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It has happened, but more likely that student had some unlogged time as well, flying with non-CFI friends or family.
 
26 years old, 8 hours, two days (well, technically three days, I soloed first thing in the morning on the third day of training).
 
Broccoli said:
I collect old logbooks. What was expected was a lot less than now. A lot less. An innate ability doesn’t mean you know how to fly. I own a logbook in which a student solo’d in just an hour and a half.
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Who said it did?
I do think certain innate abilities give individuals certain advantages that allow them to be more comfortable thus allowing them to learn more quickly.
Regarding what was expected to solo - That depends a great deal on the individual instructor, then and now. It’s an extremely subjective thing.

Overall I would argue that much more was expected of the students of yesteryear.
Most training was done in tailwheel aircraft.
They had to demonstrate spins.
Morse code.
Demonstrated ability to navigate with pilotage and ded-reckoning.
 
Broccoli said:
I collect old logbooks. What was expected was a lot less than now. A lot less. An innate ability doesn’t mean you know how to fly. I own a logbook in which a student solo’d in just an hour and a half.
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...

 
20yo,
16.7hrs,
6mo,
20 lessons (none longer than 1.1hrs),
2 instructors
 
22 years old, 4 1/2 hrs to solo. I agree it was just different back then and honestly, he probably shouldn't have done that but somehow I survived.
 
Redneckpilot said:
Who said it did?
I do think certain innate abilities give individuals certain advantages that allow them to be more comfortable thus allowing them to learn more quickly.
Regarding what was expected to solo - That depends a great deal on the individual instructor, then and now. It’s an extremely subjective thing.

Overall I would argue that much more was expected of the students of yesteryear.
Most training was done in tailwheel aircraft.
They had to demonstrate spins.
Morse code.
Demonstrated ability to navigate with pilotage and ded-reckoning.
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Let's not overlook navigating with the LF "A & N" range. In service until early 60's.
 
Maxnr said:
Let's not overlook navigating with the LF "A & N" range. In service until early 60's.
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Until the 1970s, in Alaska... ground school in 1976 still mentioned them, but mainly as a curiosity we'd likely never encounter. The last one in the world was in Mexico, shut down in the mid 1980s.
 
Funny this should come up - soloed just this last Friday (11/18/2022), the day before my 60th birthday. I had 29.2 hours on the books (one hour glider). Due to work schedules and other commitments around the ranch, I can only fly once a week.
One big issue I had was the fact that I am on my fifth CFI (does not count discovery flight or glider). The one I'd logged the most hours with hit the "magic 1,500" and left. One was a very new CFI and it was starting at ground zero with him. One was never on time and his plane could be down for weeks. One was costing me $400 a lesson. I'm glad that things are starting to work out for me now.

I do try to log at least three hours a week on my simulator (MSFS 2020, MSFS X, X-Plane 11, Honeycomb Alpha yoke & switch panel, Logitech rudder pedals with Cessna conversion pedals, FlightSimStuff Cessna T/P/M with flaps and trim wheel). I work on whatever my CFI commented on during the last training session (which is usually roundout to flare transition). I use the simulator under the same rules I would as if I were actually flying. I use the checklists, make all pattern calls out loud (wife snickers while on her sewing machine), and all flights start at the FBO and end there - full startup, runup, TO, landing and shutdown. I want to get the Logitech radio panel next. Christmas is near. All I got for my birthday was a shirt with the back cut out.
 
I agree, and I meant the above as a joke. As in they couldn't afford a whole shirt, so they had to settle for a shirt missing a back. (My humor tends not to play well in typed communication)

An intro flight, a solo, anything of the sort is, to me, a perfect gift for any occasion.
 
guest user said:
I agree, and I meant the above as a joke. As in they couldn't afford a whole shirt, so they had to settle for a shirt missing a back. (My humor tends not to play well in typed communication)

An intro flight, a solo, anything of the sort is, to me, a perfect gift for any occasion.
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Oh, I absolutely took it as lighthearted ribbing, just as I posted my statement about only getting a solo as a joke.

It's sort of like the guy winning the lottery jokingly complaining about only winning 2 million.
 
I was 26, soloed at 12.1 hours and checkride at 40.1. This was in 2003. I was flying 2-4 times a week and working at the FBO as a mechanic for the summer and had a lot of motivation to finish before going back to school in the fall.
 
21 years and 15 hours. Part 141, so structure somewhat determined when cut loose. Like the 1.5 hours pre-solo flight with chief pilot who spent most of the flight teaching spins...
 
Who cares how long it takes? Those that fly sooner still have less experience. I agree, not everyone gets the feel as quickly...but taking longer may expose you to different temps and weather. Advantage goes to longevity eventually.
 
scarpozzi said:
Who cares how long it takes? Those that fly sooner still have less experience. I agree, not everyone gets the feel as quickly...but taking longer may expose you to different temps and weather. Advantage goes to longevity eventually.
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This is the way to think of it^
 
I was trained in the USAF. We were expected to solo in less than 10 hours, but this was primarily to wash out those who got sick or could not learn quickly. I probably had seven or eight hours, don't remember. I never had a private pilot certificate... the only civilian checkrides I have taken were SES and CFI.
 
I should’ve solo’d in 8 hours according to this but I still haven’t
 
Solo'd in 11 hours in a C150 in 1973..I was 21 years old..we did not document landings back then.. 3 months from my first flight. Started on January 6 that year...most flights only 30-45 minutes once a week..lots of rain in first three months of the year, plus I was a poor young guy with a wife and child to support and not much income for flying back then.

I worked as a full time fireman for the city of High Point on a Seagrave 100' Aerial Ladder Truck...spent my spare time reading the Jeppesen Private Pilot manual whenever I could.
 
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This is a silly metric imo. Most solo in 15-25 hours, and are also roughly the same age.
 
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