Cold, hard, non-sugar-coated answers please. How many hours before a student should move on?

Broccoli said:
I actually thought about doing this and was very close to tossing my logbook into the fireplace one night, but how do you explain already having a student pilot cert that as issued in May?
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“I started training, it was a bad experience, and I want to start again from scratch with no assumptions that I know anything.”
 
"100 hours and no solo" is a perfect answer to the "what was so bad?" question.

I can't tell from what's been provided here already, but I think your flight school was milking you. That, or it wasn't training, it was joyriding. Basically a "demo flight" done 100 times. Both sorta suck, one is forgivable.
 
Broccoli said:
And if they ask what was so bad?
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You’ve said already in this post: previous CFIs made you want to quit instead of teaching you.

You should reach out to the Ninety-nines and see id they have a chapter in your area or can recommend a good CFI.
 
Broccoli said:
And if they ask what was so bad?
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This is why you need to have a discussion with them (preferably with the Chief Flight Instructor), let them know you aren't happy, and have them tell you to your face why you haven't soloed. This needs to happen whether you decide to leave them or not.
 
Broccoli said:
And if they ask what was so bad?
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“That’s not something I feel is appropriate to discuss here, and would only serve to cause you to assume I have knowledge that I don’t want you to assume. Do you want to continue, or should I look elsewhere?”
 
I'd have to go back to the log book to find how many hours before solo but the #1 issue was that I did not know POA existed, nor any other source, nor any local aviation organization other than the flight school (School #1). Hence I was 'captive' to both the school and the CFI. I had one CFI, with the full knowledge of the school, was milking me. At least I recognized it early on. Didn't last long at that school. Owner and I had a very public, verbal exchange concerning policies. Of course he's not there anymore either, he sold the business.

A few months break to deal with out-of-state family issues (executor of an estate) but I did take a few lessons while in Arizona just for fun.

Back home - School #2 at different airport. An OK CFI, got thru checkride. As I explained when I solo'd, there was no joy, only the result of a checkbook and stubborness to make it happen. No one even considered cutting the tshirt. If they had, they'd probably pull back a stump of a hand.

I've been an airplane owner for over 20 years (bought the cherokee before checkride because I didn't like the rentals!) and an avid avocate for getting kids interested in aviation because it leads to interest in STEM.

As a (now former) board member of Colorado Pilots Association, I've tried to make inroads to the various flight schools to make students more aware of local aviation support for students. Not much success, I'm sorry to say. The schools around here want the "pro pilot" student, the one who wants to fly for the airlines, and the simple GA student, like me, is considered 2nd class.

To Broccoli, since your avatar is female, I suggest finding the state pilot association (ever state has one), and joining the local 99s and the WAI chapters for support and mentoring. There are many members who are CFIs as well as just plain folk who want to fly. They have no vested $$$ interest and are excellent mentors.
 
Broccoli said:
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Soooo, came for thoughts, got the thoughts, and edited out all of the original content. What's that about? This thread overall strikes as very helpful for you and other students that are discouraged by life, by training, by the je nai se quoi. Why would you remove that and not help others?

Took me a long time to solo. Switched instructors and soloed in a couple hours. Let me know if you are willing to travel (SE WI) and I will put you in touch with one of the best - he's one of those instructors that's forgotten more about flying than I will ever know. Or take Ed (Central MI?) up on his offer too. In addition to soloing, he will teach you about runway inspections.
 
Not enough info, not enough at all.
As others have alluded to, not just about hours.
 
Half Fast said:
Well, D-K may not be real, but trolls are, so.....

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking/dunning-kruger-effect-probably-not-real
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Wouldn't go so far as to say it's "not real", but it is getting referred to in the wrong contexts increasingly often. Became yet another buzzword for people to throw at each other to sound smarter, as is the status quo unfortunately. As the article states, the intent of the concept is one of self-awareness, not to belittle the perceived intelligence of others.
 
Step one: Get a CLEAR understanding of why it's taking so long.
Step two: Look at the long game. If you think you're doomed to be a ****ty pilot no matter what then stop taking the risk.

We've all seen pilots who never get good at it, and they remain a hazard to themselves and others every time they take the controls.
 
It took me about 80 hr to solo but got my PPL in about 130hr. PM me and I can give you my experience. I did a nice write up here about a month ago.
 
My first CFI was awesome...but unavailable when I was...I moved on with 10 hours...still have mad respect for him...
My second CFI was OTW to the airlines...I bought a brand new 172...the school quoted me pricing on the CFI only and reneged after the 172 showed up. Still in contact with him!
My third CFI finished my primary training...literally started all over and stayed with me all the way through instruments.

My moves were based on circumstances not ability but it was easy to move on...if you suck you suck...but do not be afraid to try another CFI...
 
I look at this a bit differently. Our syllabus is not geared toward early solo. In fact, we don't start spending a lot of time in traffic patterns until lesson 16. I do teach landings starting with lesson 2, but that is just one or two at the end of the lesson.

What I have discovered is that it is not the number of hours, necessarily, but it can be looked at as the number of landings. Most of my students have made at least 80 landings before they solo, and these are at three or four different airports.

The Air Force focused on us soloing in less than 10 hours, but they were trying to eliminate students who were unlikely to succeed. And they were successful.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I look at this a bit differently. Our syllabus is not geared toward early solo. In fact, we don't start spending a lot of time in traffic patterns until lesson 16. I do teach landings starting with lesson 2, but that is just one or two at the end of the lesson.

What I have discovered is that it is not the number of hours, necessarily, but it can be looked at as the number of landings. Most of my students have made at least 80 landings before they solo, and these are at three or four different airports.

The Air Force focused on us soloing in less than 10 hours, but they were trying to eliminate students who were unlikely to succeed. And they were successful.
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80? holy crap. I don't think I 80 landings in my logbook until around the time I passed my instrument check ride.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I look at this a bit differently. Our syllabus is not geared toward early solo. In fact, we don't start spending a lot of time in traffic patterns until lesson 16. I do teach landings starting with lesson 2, but that is just one or two at the end of the lesson.

What I have discovered is that it is not the number of hours, necessarily, but it can be looked at as the number of landings. Most of my students have made at least 80 landings before they solo, and these are at three or four different airports.

The Air Force focused on us soloing in less than 10 hours, but they were trying to eliminate students who were unlikely to succeed. And they were successful.
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That's interesting. I consolidated the data when putting it into MFB, so I'd have to dig out the old book to know for sure, but it looks like I was around 80-90 when I soloed.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
The Air Force focused on us soloing in less than 10 hours, but they were trying to eliminate students who were unlikely to succeed. And they were successful.
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Well, maybe that gives some justification for private pilots equating their early solo with a knack for airmanship . . . ;)
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I look at this a bit differently. Our syllabus is not geared toward early solo. In fact, we don't start spending a lot of time in traffic patterns until lesson 16. I do teach landings starting with lesson 2, but that is just one or two at the end of the lesson.

What I have discovered is that it is not the number of hours, necessarily, but it can be looked at as the number of landings. Most of my students have made at least 80 landings before they solo, and these are at three or four different airports.

The Air Force focused on us soloing in less than 10 hours, but they were trying to eliminate students who were unlikely to succeed. And they were successful.
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16 flights before even starting landing practice seems excessive to me as a syllabus plan, just on the surface anyway...but I guess it doesn't really matter work on landings or work on navigation, either way it all ends up at the same place in the end I suppose
let's see....
Solo was my 12th log entry...at about 15 hours total
Well...my 1st three flights only logged 1 landing. I only had two flights logged pre-solo with 10 landings...the rest were fewer
46 landings for me prior to my solo flight day. The log entry for my solo included some dual as well so not sure how many of those 10 landing was pre-solo..... so I was probably around about 50 landings at solo

As I recall the thought for working on solo first was to
build confidence
and work quickly towards being able to practice things solo to stretch the dollar AND to optimize training time
 
Brad W said:
16 flights before even starting landing practice seems excessive to me as a syllabus plan, just on the surface anyway...but I guess it doesn't really matter work on landings or work on navigation, either way it all ends up at the same place in the end I suppose
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Perhaps I wasn't clear. My students start getting landing instruction on lesson 2 or 3... but that is not the focus of training until #16. Instead, we are working on steep turns, stalls, simulated emergencies. ground reference maneuvers, etc. Not navigation.

We also have two evaluation flights (with a different CFI) built into the syllabus, one for maneuvers and one for solo. I have worked at two other flight training facilities; this one is the most organized.
 
You made me look -- 181 landings before solo. :eek: I should have just moved on apparently. (Too bad I had already bought the ruddy thing)

It was in a Beech Sundowner and with a brand new CFI, so perhaps some caution was warranted. :D
 
schmookeeg said:
You made me look -- 181 landings before solo. :eek: I should have just moved on apparently. (Too bad I had already bought the ruddy thing)

It was in a Beech Sundowner and with a brand new CFI, so perhaps some caution was warranted. :D
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That's a good point about the new CFI. I would have to do some hard research about my early students back when I started instructing in 2001. I do remember always going out near the runway with a handheld radio until I realized if they screwed up a landing, I would probably be too late on the radio to help. These days I usually get a cup of coffee and watch from the office, if I can even see the touchdown area.
 
I'm just reading the title again, and wondering how many times people on this forum actually get something OTHER than 'cold-hard-non-sugar coated-answers'. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As to how long? I'm inclined to think like Churchill on that one. Never give up. Never, ever. But then again, it took me about 4000 tries to get landings down.
 
It took me probably about 100 landings until my CFI felt comfortable for a solo. I was a slow learner. I did look one time at my log book and 309 landings were logged before I took my check ride. I spent a ---damn fortune getting my PPL.
Then about a year ago I added up landings since 2015 and it was over 2500 with about 1200 hrs in my look book. I am just learning how to land. I fly a 172, what else do you do in a 172 besides practice landing?? LOL
IMG_1853.JPG
 
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I stopped flying when I was told I was about ready to solo at the age of 27. I kind of panicked because I figured had I solo'd, I would have completed training and then continued flying. I work for the gubment and make modest pay....at the time, my wife was in grad school and racking up $100k of debt. I was also looking to sell my house within the year and just didn't see having a PPL as a wise financial move at the time. All my Interestate travel was in a straight line into the wind and I just wasn't traveling within that 300-600 mile bubble that would have made sense. So....I put it off until I turned 42 and almost had my house paid off. I changed jobs and knew I'd be looking at a 20% raise with nothing to spend it on.

I started flying again last year and my new job has given me time challenges. Weather and scheduling with my CFI have both posed problems. He has other students and stopped flying evenings/weekends. I typically have to either leave work earlier than usual or take an extended lunch break to fly. I solo'd just before Christmas and am going to start doing cross countries (this Friday or next). Despite the slowness of everything, I'm more mature now. I'm more financially prepared and have destinations that I could see a plane being beneficial to reach. I'm also in a position where my job will hopefully be easier in 2-3 years once I learn everything and continue building my team. My instructor has always commented that my landings are great. When I step away from flying and go back to it, I'm sometimes slow to recall things. This has been really helpful spreading things out because I'm aware of what happens when I don't fly frequently enough and understand that I may want to hire a CFI to fly with me occasionally even when I have hundreds of hours. You can always learn.

I would consider flying with more than one CFI. Go in asking them for their honest feedback on the first flight and then try to establish what your week points are....then ask them outright how far from solo'ing you are. Show them your logbook and tell them what you've gone over. I would expect you to solo between 13-20 hours, but if you don't have landings, slow flight, turns around a point, and emergency procedures down, that's the big ones. I fly in the mountains and control of the aircraft is critical to nail the approach or you could slam into the side of unforgiving terrain, but come to think of it....plains are just as unforgiving if you need more practice. Schedule a flight with someone new and get their opinion of what you lack.
 
I think the ultimate judge is: are you still having fun?
Do you feel like you're learning? If you answered yes to both, keep flying. Moreso if $ isn't an issue.

If you're learning but not having fun - it's on you.
If you're having fun but not learning: CFI switch time maybe. Gotta be honest with yourself on where the shortcoming is.

I recently met a person who has about 40h pre-solo (all within a couple months) but they're LOVING it.
They're involved with local EAA stuff and love flight and there's not a snowballs chance in hell I'd tell them to give it up based on hours. I'd say the same if they were 200h in.

If you have goals, time constraints or other things where you need/strongly desire to keep the progress moving -- then sort that out with your CFI and understand your shortcomings. Otherwise just enjoy the ride both figuratively and literally.
 
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