Dual instruction rip-off to first solo.

[Centaurus]

I did a trial instructional flight using a C150 and the student, a 40 year old bloke flew very nicely indeed. In the event he decided to learn to fly at a country flying school where rates were nearly 30% less than city flying school rates. The country school was owned and operated by one instructor. After over 55 hours of dual instruction of which 50 hours were on circuits the student had still not been sent solo. This was over 6 months. Turns out that several other students had chosen to fly there at the low rates and none had gone solo under 35 hours. A rip-off - you betcha life it was. And it was a Grade 1 CFI at that.

Looking at old log books I see that in general the average time to first solo in Tiger Moths and Chipmunks (tail-draggers all) was 8-10 hours with flying once a fortnight. No electronic intercomm either, no flaps in the Tiger Moth, and no ATC except light signals. In contrast, it seems that students now are taking anywhere from 15-25 hours before first solo.

Disregarding ATC, is the difference between then and now due to poor instruction - or hours building, maybe - or inexperienced instructors -or are today's students less motivated - are the Cessnas harder to fly?

[BigEndBob]

I always found, with a few exceptions, take a students age and divide by 2, thats roughly the hours to solo.

[LocoDriver]

Good Grief!
There are still rip off operators out there!
The rest of us in the industry had a duty to ensure that these underhand operators are dealt with, that sort of carry on should be reported to the CAA (or CASA in your case)

If a student has not gone solo at 50 hrs, in my view, he never will.
Most of mine are probably between 10 and 15, 20 for some older ones.
However, I do not send solo on the basis of 'hours' I send solo on the basis of acceptable, competent safe flying, having covered all the requirements for achieving such flight.
My exception is a young lad who will have 55 hrs when he solos, (too young yet) as he commenced flying at 11, !!!.

I find some of the big schools are ripping off students, as they have a different instructor foir each flight, no consistency with training, and the poor students have paid twice as much to learn!

I have been flying for over 30 years, teaching for 20, and still go by the belief that flying should be fun,safe, and professional.
I try and pass that on to all my sturdents, However, the biggest problem I have these days is 'attitude' and I dont mean the aircrafts!
Anyway, happy intructing everyone! I'm off to the bugsmasher!

[poteroo]

You'd probably find that there's a correlation between hours to solo and the location.

More traffic, more radio work,more runways & procedures = more hours, but these factors probably not exclusive. Age is definitely one, as others have noted.

Would also take money on there being a runway direction x seasonal weather correlation too. Way back when - Tigers and Austers used an 'allover' big grassy paddock....where it was always into wind.

happy days,

[BEagle]

Hmmm....

1968. Busy UK school, Cessna 150s with radio and electric flaps, 3 runways........

Solo after 8:05. Any school taking 20-30 hours to get a student solo cannot being doing it right, in my view.

[A and C]

I have found that the time to solo is more related to landings rather than hours , the local airfield has a noise procedure that leads to a circuit size that will only permit five or maybe six landings an hour , I now teach at an airfield that has an eight hundred foot circuit without noise problems permitting abut ten landings per hour and I see the average "time to solo" being a lot lower BUT the landings to solo stays about the same.

[Sleeve Wing]

Yep, I'm with A and C on the number of landings/size of circuit theory.
I also think that, except in a very small number of cases, an Instructor change should be instituted if a regular club student hasn't soloed in 15-20 hours.
Rgds, Sleeve.

[A and C]

Yes Sleeve we have that policy just recently the CFI called me and asked me to fly with a student that was almost ready for solo but the CFI could not quite get him off solo.

Within an hour I had sent the guy solo, I'm sure that it is a "mental" thing with students that they sometimes are expecting some sort of prompt from there usual instructor.
Put another guy in the aircraft with them and they have to fly the aircraft by them selfs as they don't know what help or advice to expect from a new instructor.