I soloed in 35 seconds, would have been sooner but there was a gust of wind
Seriously though, for the purposes of working out the average, I soloed at 25 hours on the button. My instructor starting making noises about sending me around 18 or so but I decided that I very much wanted a say in the decision. This seems to be a bit unusual, infact some posters might remember the thread where I asked for advice on whether I should bite the bullet (I did
). Some were a little incredulous that I even had a say in it, but to each their own.
On the subject of using it as some competition, I certainly understand how everyone wants to be thought of as a 'natural'. There is a feeling that if you don't achieve a stupidly low solo time then you are some how inferior, but the more I think about it, the less this makes any kind of sense.
Let me put it to you this way... I am still a student although I am hopefully heading into the home stretch. I *firmly* believe, that even as a student, if I were to take one of my non-flying friends up and purely drill circuits with them, even *I* could have them reach a point where they would have memorized the functions enough that they could do one on their own in say..... 5 hours (maybe even less). It wouldn't be a sensible or safe thing to do (which is exactly why it is not allowed!), but I don't think it would be that difficult.
With that in mind, it hopefully should put some perspective on the issue and demonstrate that teaching style affect pre-solo hours far more than the relative natural ability of the student. My first solo was one of the biggest moments of my life, and I very very proud of myself for getting to that point. It is a bit of a shame that we have this inbuilt competitive nature that forces us to judge ourselves by comparing with others. I am just very happy to be a member of the P1 club, and pretty soon your time will come, and you will be a member too, and whether its 5 hours, 20 hours or 50 hours, we can all raise a glass to ourselves and say, "We have done something very few people will ever do, lets be proud".
When Roger Bannister ran the 4 minute mile, who the hell cared how many hours training it took
