I was in the Air Cadets and did a six month course (one day a week) flying motor gliders.
I went solo around the circuit after exactky 9 hours.
A week later after bashing the circuit my instructor let me go solo and leave the circuit to fly around at 3000 ft for a while,
turn of the engine at a visual landmark, glide in to the circuit to do an engine of landing.
All that without doing a single caa exam. The only test we had was multi choice and had about 10 questions.
Cool or what!!!!!!!!