Taking a look at this thread as an ex-instructor in the 90s at Eastleigh in the UK and was reminded of the student - mitch - who took me to the brink with her flying and I battled every inch of the way to get her to fly solo. She must rate as one of the longest to solo here and, yet, that is not the point.
Mitch was a lovely lady in her 60s whos husband had passed away and she was determined to do something with the rest of her life and that 'something' was to learn to fly. The only problem, as I was later to find out, was that her deceased husband had spent decades of married life essentially 'cowing' mitch such that she had absolutely no confidence in herself whatsoever. She couldnt drive, hell, she couldnt even balance a cheque-book as she was given absolutely no responsibility in life other than to cook and to run the house. He had essentially 'bullied' her into submission and was led to believe that she would amount to nothing. (you have to understand this before the rest of the story makes sense). Now I was running an adult evening class at the local college, teaching PPL groundschool to earn some extra cash when in walks mitch and a friend, another pensioner, both professing to want to fly and both wanting to finish the exams first so as to be well-prepared for the flying.
Eventually Mitch came out to the airfield for her first trip. It quickly became evident that her husband had really smashed her confidence and from what I could see she had NO natural affinity with the machine or her environment. In short she was totally ham-fisted and seemed unable to grasp the simplest of notions in the air. However, she was determined to try - and good on her for for trying! I was, however, rather concerned that an elderly lady might be throwing her pension away on a whim when I felt that success in her new venture was going to be extremely remote, to say the least....I quietly took her to one side and pointed out, after a few hours of flying, that maybe aviation was not really her thing and that I didnt want to see her money pouring down the drain at something like £100 per flying hour! She bristled and told me, in the sweetest possible way, that the money was HER concern and that she DIDNT CARE!! her husband had ruined her life and, by god,she was going to follow her dream!! somewhat taken aback at her determination, I agreed that I would continue with her but that we were in it for the long-haul! It was going to take a long time, longer than anybody else in the club, but I would work with her 'until we got it right'. Throughout the coming months I was to repeat to her, over and over, that this was going to be an expensive and time-consuming business and that she really ought to consider perhaps another hobby......she smiled her smile and got on with the battle. And what a battle it was. At times I went through periods of dreading her walking in the door and I often felt ashamed that she was paying to fly when she really had so little talent at it. Then, all of a sudden, I started to see signs - very small signs - that what I was saying was slowly, so slowly, getting through to her. Suddenly it started to become a challenge. We started to progress through the syllabus, very slowly, but, nevertheless progressing. Mitch began to 'emerge from the fog' and was actually beginning to think in the air! We worked at it, my god did we work, together! She put so much effort in that I began to be rather impressed and, dare I say it, proud of her attempts to conform to my teachings.
Over a period of 16 months we worked and worked at it. Circuit after circuit, interspersed with refresher sessions outside of the circuit to keep her interest and her skills up. Confidence rose and she FOUGHT back! I began to think that she might actually get solo! You see, in that 'chat' that we had, she told me just how much this meant to her to learn to fly and that she knew that she was useless at just about everything but that she wanted to prove something to herself by learning something that her husband never had the nerve to do - to fly - and she fully expected never to be let solo. Trouble was, I began to think that Mitch was capable!
Eventually came the day, 16 months later, where the circuits were acceptable, the landings were reasonable and her confidence was good - and steady. Mitch was READY! 48 hours and 10 minutes and she was there! I told her that there was nothing more that I could do for her and that I was getting out and that she had something to prove to herself....I walked up to the tower and sat there whilst she made that first solo. Interestingly, the tower controller was chatting to me whilst this was going on and conversationally asked "what ever happened to that mad so unding french lady that you used to take up? God, we used to nearly hit the crash button on some of her approaches...!!" It was a lovely moment to finally say "mate, you're looking at her right now!"
The first solo, as did many more, passed uneventfully - apart, that is, from the party afterwards. I was SOOOO proud of her....
12000 hours later I have had a few highs in my aviation career, including flying the A380 but NOTHING has beaten the proud moment when Mitch went solo. NOTHING. So I guess what I am really saying here is that it is NOT how many hours you went solo in, it is the fact that you DID it and what sort of a fight you had, personally, to achieve it that counts.