average hours to go solo
 

Just curious as to what is the average amount of hours people do before going on their first solo ?

Cheers

Went solo at about 11 hours. I always though that 11/12 was average.

Anything between 1 hour and 50 hours! There have been numerous threads on this in the past, mostly ending up being a competition with more and more ppruners giving fewer and fewer hours before their solo.

If I said the average was 5 hours, what does that tell you? That you're "better" or "worse"? What if the average was 10? 20? Or 3?

It all depends on the attitude of the instructor, the frequency with which someone flies, the nature of the aerodrome and its own requirements (i.e. between learning at an international airport or small airfield), the student's age and how quickly they have picked up things as well as their ability and confidence.

Cheers

Whirls

I went solo at 17 hours... thats the figure i get when i take out a bunch of flights i took with the instructor just for the hell of it, like local fly-outs etc with the club, or ones just to get up as the weather wasn't good enough for much else...

but all that put in it'd be 20 hours...

Theres no decent "average" to be honest... people come out with 8 hours etc, but they forget to mention that they probably did gliding before, loads of UAS, or air cadets freebies etc. Or were in the military and it was condensed in.

Frequency of flying is also a BIG factor. I had month gaps between lessons on more than one occasion just due to weather alone.

To be honest though, if you were up there after just 8 hours flight, there would surely be things you couldn't handle. How can that whole pre-solo syllabus be put into just 8 hours anyway?

There is no average.

There is one number, and that is the number that you fly solo at, so don't worry about what anybody else say's, especially if they say they did better than you.

Some instructors will send students solo when they can just about manage to fly a circuit if all goes well. Others like to make sure they'd be able to cope with engine failure after take-off, complicated ATC instructions if things are crowded, or a diversion to another airfield if someone crashes on the runway (it's happened!). Most are somewhere between those two extremes.

Add to that different weather conditions, runway lengths and widths, frequency of flight, and type of aircraft, and you have a whole load of variables before you even consider student age, aptitude etc.

So there is no average. And if there were, if would be meaningless.

I bet if you used the search tool you would find several hundred pages of discussion on this topic. Starting with a few pages of sense before sliding into abuse as those who took 2 hrs are abused by those that took 30 and so on. I will be this thread will slide that way.

It takes as long as it takes. Spend more timing practicing and less time worrying and it will come naturally.

You might be ready way before you solo. Often the weather plays it's part. No good for solo, but fine for other things ... so on go the hours. I was lucky with weather and was young so went solo quickly, but I'm certainly no great pilot. It's no race, and no disgrace to take a while. The thing is, we all go solo when ready (weather permitting) and are all as good as each other at that point!

SS

The man asked about average

In typical pprune fashion everyone's given a short lecture, but the only appropriate answer would have been the number of hours after one went solo... after a significant number of answers we could add them up and calculate the average :)

Mine was after 13 hours ;)

Ivor

i was asked if i wanted to go solo at 16 hours but promptly said no thank you not yet,

long story(did have 2 resonable time breaks though betwwen lessons)

Don't worry, i had around 45 hours when i went solo, but i felt that i could handle most of the things that could happen or go wrong.

I never understood how somebody with 8 hours total flying time that goes solo can be trained enough to deal with emergencys.

Don't fly in a Mooney - I did mine in a DIAMOND (!) Katana in just less than 10 hours. ;)

I stand to be corrected but I think someones love of Mooney comes from having seen a picture of one, not learning to fly in the marque....

Chris68,

Yep, we could all give the hours that we took to get an average in hours. However, as was stated, that's happened before, and it just ends up as a bucnch of ego's trying to out do each other. It's pointless and makes no odds, so the average time taken is ... the time it takes!

No lecture, just common sense.

SS

Does anyone else ever get that feeling that maybe you just shouldn't have asked that question ! but hindsight would be great to own

If you must do something like this, perhaps the average number of landings needed would be more appropriate than the time taken? Some people have to do orbits, back-tracks, holds, extended circuits which all add time.

If you are asking because you're worried because of the amount of time you are taking - don't be. It might be because of the reasons above and if you so you are learning other skills rather than landing (even it it's just observation as you wait for someone else to take-off!). It might be because the weather is causing big gaps between lessons and holding you back - don't worry, flying is like that.

Apparently students at Embry Riddle in Florida were being sent solo in an average of 100hrs!

Sir Hugh Dowding went solo in less than two! :eek:

I wonder if some of the above posters would say between 2 and 50 hours if they were asked the same question while selling a PPL course to a new customer

No, I doubt they would. 10-20hrs is probably what most clubs would say to a customer provided they flew reasonably frequently.

I was called as a witness to an industrial tribunal once were A CFI did not allow students to handle the controls until around 20 hours!!!!l