How long to solo?

[BillTIZ]

Either you were super duper duper duper ace, or your instructor had low standards.
Nothing against you, as perhaps you were the above mentioned ace.
My point is to cover everything that needs to be covered pre solo, which much of that has to be proven a few consecutive times, there’s just not enough time in 7 hours to do it. Even acing everything consistently that would be about the threshold.

I soloed in a bit over 14 hours.
That said, I also instructed a few that weren’t ready until about 60.

6, but things were a lot different 44 yrs ago.

 

[Warmi]

22 hours.

 

[BrianNC]

25.6 hours, but that was due to starting in Feb '79, flying 12 hours, then stopping from April to Nov, then flying 4.8 hours in November in another state, then quitting until Aug of '80 and finally soloing in Sept '80. I noticed the last 5.4 hours when I first started flying before I quit for awhile was all TOs and landings. So I was probably ready to solo when I quit at 12 hours.

 

[Stan Cooper]

5.5 hours, but in retrospect that was way too soon; hell, I hadn't even been taught how to use the flaps yet. This was in a C-150 in 1964 at Vandenberg AFB Aero Club, and my instructor's day job was as a C-130 pilot.