40 hours to solo

AuntPeggy

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We were hangar talking last night at Lilliana's Italian Restaurant with a few other pilots when one informed us that my old flight school is now requiring a 40 hour minimum before solo. The comment was made, "Why not just grab the student by the heels and shake him til all his money falls out of his pockets?" Another comment made me cringe. "Anyone not able to solo by 40 hours ought to quit flying."

Any other comments (from CFIs & from students)?
 
We were hangar talking last night at Lilliana's Italian Restaurant with a few other pilots when one informed us that my old flight school is now requiring a 40 hour minimum before solo. The comment was made, "Why not just grab the student by the heels and shake him til all his money falls out of his pockets?" Another comment made me cringe. "Anyone not able to solo by 40 hours ought to quit flying."

Any other comments (from CFIs & from students)?


Lemme guess -- they require 10 hours "Dual taxi practice" as well?
 
Have you checked to see whether it's true or not?

In any event, I can imagine situations in which a 40-hour minimum might be appropriate, mostly involving complex planes at incredibly busy airports, but that would be a pretty rare case. OTOH, if they've been having a lot of accidents/incidents involving low-time solo students, and their insurer is about to pass on an unacceptable rate increase, this might be a financial necessity to continue offering training. Or perhaps they're just no longer interested in primary training and are doing this to discourage Student Pilots while not violating their lease with the airport that required them to offer training (as many such leases do). For just that reason, the FBO here at Salisbury has reduced his primary training fleet to single C-152 supplemented by the C-172 used mostly for IR training.

In addition, I've always said that time to solo is totally overblown as a point of discussion. I can see some arguments for taking the trainee through all the training, including XC's, before letting them out solo. I'm not saying I like that idea, just that I see some points to be made for doing it. Whether those points are outweighed by the positive aspects of earlier solo would require more thought than I care to put into the matter today.
 
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I've had a few (very few) students that took 40 hrs to solo. The only way to make that a reasonable minimum, that I can think of, would be if the planes were very complex, expensive, or otherwise difficult. A Cirrus comes to mind. Even then, I would expect most if not all of the dual requirements to be complete by that time.

Any idea what planes they are using and where solo comes in their syllabus?

Joe

edit: I see Ron hit post while I was typing. He has a couple more good reasons.
 
In addition, I've always said that time to solo is totally overblown as a point of discussion.

Ron,

This is one of the few metrics "everyone" seems to "know" about.

Joe said, "My Uncle Charley soloed in 4 hours -- he was some pilot. Too bad about the accident..."
:vomit:

The new student pilot has doubts, misgivings, fear, excitement -- all sorts of emotions rolled into this new flying thing and he/she has yet to spend much time in the aviation world.

Their frame of reference can be adjusted somewhat, but in most cases we (instructors) have a few hours to counter a lifetime of perception. Coupled to this is the more goal-oriented personality types that are attracted to piloting an airplane.

When I was a student I wanted to learn to fly that thing. And the first hurdle was flying that thing by myself. Time to solo was important -- if all my peers (I was in a 141 school) were out solo at 15 hours and I was still doing dual touch and gos at 25 hours, I would think, "Am I cut out for this?"

NOW I understand that is flawed logic, but THEN -- that perception was reality.
:dunno:

I soloed at a Controlled field in 11.9 hours and thought I was behind the curve -- EVERYONE else was soloing at 10 -- one guy at 9! What's wrong with me?
:confused:

Again, it's one of those milestones that you "know" all about before you even begin, and despite all the counseling to the contrary you start counting and wondering.

But 40 hours? If this is true, it's positively ridiculous.
 
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The only place I've heard about having a 40-hour minimum to solo was in the Cirrus Access program that I heard about on the Pilotcast. I think that's the name of it, anyway. It's the program where if you buy a new Cirrus, you spend $80k more and get your own personal CFI for a year. In that program, they don't let you solo without a minimum of 40 hours.

But, 40 hrs to solo a simple trainer? Come on... I thought that my 23 was high.
 
The only place I've heard about having a 40-hour minimum to solo was in the Cirrus Access program that I heard about on the Pilotcast. I think that's the name of it, anyway. It's the program where if you buy a new Cirrus, you spend $80k more and get your own personal CFI for a year. In that program, they don't let you solo without a minimum of 40 hours.

That's still beaucoup hours, but makes a bit of sense.
 
I would have been happy to have soloed with only 40 hours. :redface:
 
IMHO solo should remain performanced based. There is no guarantee that a certain number of hours equals a certain performance level.
 
Have you checked to see whether it's true or not?
Good question, Ron, so I phoned and talked to the owner. No. She said that someone must have gotten confused because they only require 40 hours before the checkride. If capable, students can solo with less than 10 hours.

I'm happier with that answer and glad you prompted me to check it out. Rumors are just so easy to spread.
 
Good question, Ron, so I phoned and talked to the owner. No. She said that someone must have gotten confused because they only require 40 hours before the checkride. If capable, students can solo with less than 10 hours.

I'm happier with that answer and glad you prompted me to check it out. Rumors are just so easy to spread.

Same for the FAA (141 notwithstanding), so that doesn't sound like a problem at all. Thanks for checking.
 
We were hangar talking last night at Lilliana's Italian Restaurant with a few other pilots when one informed us that my old flight school is now requiring a 40 hour minimum before solo. The comment was made, "Why not just grab the student by the heels and shake him til all his money falls out of his pockets?" Another comment made me cringe. "Anyone not able to solo by 40 hours ought to quit flying."

Any other comments (from CFIs & from students)?

Unconscionable. :(

Bob Gardner
 
I would have been happy to have soloed with only 40 hours. :redface:

I've had many students who took that long or longer because of life interruptions...but to make it a requirement? Chutzpah.

Bob Gardner
 
I soloed at a Controlled field in 11.9 hours and thought I was behind the curve -- EVERYONE else was soloing at 10 -- one guy at 9! What's wrong with me?
Exactly my point. And that's why I hate getting into discussions about it -- the less we talk about it, the less new students will think it matters, and the happier they'll be in their training.
But 40 hours? If this is true, it's positively ridiculous.
As I said above, I can think of a number of reasons why 40 hours minimum to solo could be non-ridiculous, so I'm not going to judge without more facts.
 
Good question, Ron, so I phoned and talked to the owner. No. She said that someone must have gotten confused because they only require 40 hours before the checkride. If capable, students can solo with less than 10 hours.

I'm happier with that answer and glad you prompted me to check it out. Rumors are just so easy to spread.
:):):):)

And thus endeth the thread, I should hope.
 
The only place I've heard about having a 40-hour minimum to solo was in the Cirrus Access program that I heard about on the Pilotcast. I think that's the name of it, anyway. It's the program where if you buy a new Cirrus, you spend $80k more and get your own personal CFI for a year. In that program, they don't let you solo without a minimum of 40 hours.

That's the name - It's actually 50 hours minimum to solo. But, that's in a fancy-schmancy Cirrus, which is a fast plane with a lot of gadgetry. In addition, the program seems to be focused on training mostly in the cross-country environment, so they may not have quite as many landings as your average 50-hour pilot who's spent a lot of time staying in the pattern does.
 
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