Whirly's have it right. And yes it was a bit of a wind up.
There are so many things which effect the decision to send someone solo.
The training required is alot of the time dependent on the local area. Down south I can fully appreciate why the FI's need to require a far better grasp of more of the course than we did up north with no controlled airspace for miles around. The poor chap who crashed down south is an example of that. So it really is meaningless comparing times unless you were at the same field with the same instructor.
As for the language barrier, I can assure you that the instructor after me had to have a local dictionary given to him. The poor chap was from Devon and for a week was telling everyone he was away for fud for lunch. Which means something totally different up here.
Last edited by mad_jock; 5th February 2008 at 11:30.