As a PPL student (42 yr young) I agree that there are too many variables to accurately predict "time to first solo". I am in the circuit at current point in my training ( 10 hrs). I'm a part time student for "serious fun".

In fact, at this more cautious stage of my life I would prefer to be comfortable about going solo than rushing into it.

Many of my lessons have been cancelled due to weather often leaving weeks between lessons. In fact I reckon nothing will move out of our training centre tomorrow either. It's based in Cork (EICK), scene of todays tragic accident... RIP.

AOB9

Believe it or not in one year I flew 50 times to Cork in a Seneca five twin.
Even if the UK was CAVOK you could almost guarantee that Cork would be 200 feet overcast.
Low RVRs where common.
Lovely restaurant down by the Docks! Browns if I remember right :)
Often stayed up at the Airport Hotel and sometimes in the City.
We used to Park on the main apron but then got shoved down to the aero club. Tight taxiway and a couple of disarmed military jets parked up.
Great bunch of people at the aero club.
Give them my regards they must remember the Gold and white Seneca five that came in every week ;)
Tragic the crash there thiis week :sad:

Pace

For all our discussions on PPrune i personall y think me and pace would actually quite like flying with each other.

What ever tickets we might have we both have the same prioritys on whats makes our days at work easy. :) And I suspect we would both enjoy working with each other. And to be honest I would love to go for pint with him or her ;) because we are both pilots not operators.

Mad Jock

Love to take you up on the pint too but just to make it very clear I am definately a Him not a Her :uhoh:
I am into Hers (the female variety) but not cross dressing in Kilts :E Must have been a typo!!!? or the islands best whisky?

Pace

6 hours 40 mins, whilte waltham 1982 or 83 with Paul Bonhomme

solo
 

15 mins,control line 1955,powered by ED Bee;)

Mine was about 9hrs, but there are different factors in it... Someone at my flying club went solo after 31 hours because he hadn't got round to getting a medical done. As everyone says though, hours are irrelevant, all that matters is that you get a licence at the end of it...
Jack

30h26 but
 

Hey Folks...

Took me 30h26 to solo, but to my excuse it was a high performance, retractable gear&constant speed prop thingy...the venerable F-33A Bonanza

Commonly also called Banana, specially in the yellow livery!!

Hope that excuses the high number!! :p :E :E

Cheers,
:cool:

Myra, is that legal where you are to train in a complex??? sure would be nice. bit of a learning curve i imagine, would make circuit training a bit daunting.

My solo was over cooked due to a delayed medical, when i finally did it, it was a slight anti-climax, however still remember every second of it! the congrats from the tower made me feel on top of the world!

Bonanza
 

Hej Kiwi!

Sure it was, i was trained by Lufthansa and airlines oriented. Can hardly do that on a Tomahawk (or maybe you can...)
Downwind was 120kts, a bit harsh when you share airport with Warriors 90kts....good fun too!!

Enjoy and happy landings!! :cool:

Mrya

soo jealous....... :{

How about ME training?
 

Hej Kiwi!

Wana be jealous??? I did training for Multi Engine on a Piper Cheyenne III PA42 (that is 2x650 shp for 4-5 tons)

Hehehe :E:E:E:E


Yep i know :ouch:

For your better feeling.... I am now FI on PA-38, earning 20€ per hours, with 15h at best per month... do your math!!

Enjoy! Cya around

how on earth do you cover 13 exercises which require a good amount of time in 4-6 hours?

Went solo Today
 

I went solo Today after 14 Hours in G-BBJX. A special thanks to Steve Hall for having the confidence in me to send me solo.

Regards

Congratulations!
I see that despite your name that is definitely a fix wing first solo. Best of luck with the rest of your training!

Well done, great feeling

Looking over 24 + years of instructing the trend is clear. The time to solo increased but the total time to the PPL license decreased. This was because I put more and more effort on the ex 5 to 9 foundation skills right at the beginning. This paid of many times over in much faster progress on the more advanced topics.

I also now pay a lot more attention to the "What Ifs"

Just because it is you first solo doesn't mean that

- Your engine can't fail at any point in the circuit
- You can't have to smoke in the cockpit
- Your radio can't fail
- A cabin door can't spring open in flight
- You won't have divert to another airport if the one you are at becomes unusalable
- You can't be cut off by another aircraft not conforming to the correct circuit procedures or not following ATC instructions
- You can't be subjected to the potential of harmful wake vortices from an aircraft ahead of you.

So when you went solo and look at this list you would have been able to immediately know what to do if any of these situations came up.....Right ?

Hi,

Yes i did get taught about the what ifs and practised in them. The training has been fantastic so far. Thanks for all the kind comments.

Regards

Flew my first solo circuit on Monday afternoon having clocked up 9 hours 50, at RAF Leuchars Flying club

Thought I'd give my tuppence worth - just to balance the scores, because this has become something of a willy waggling thread - you know the sort, I did my solo the night before I got to the airfield, in my sleep :)

I know at the club I am learning to fly - PPL(A) - there are those who solo after 10 hours (usually they already have glider / UL experience) or others who take more time - in one case it's because they leave too much time between lessons, meaning they "forget" what they have learnt, others are simply slower - like me :)

For info, I have always had a fear of flying and decided to learn to fly to combat this; my fear of flying is because of the fear that the pilot *ucks up - if you imagine driving a car on ice, one wrong move and the car is in the ditch. My rationale was in thinking that the pilot has to react in turbulent weather / storms - one wrong move and the plane crashes. But as we all know, the plane does most, if not all, of the work and yes, it has helped - I feel much more comfortable when flying scheduled airliners, no more panicking when the door closes!

But back to the topic - I soloed after 27 hours - so no, am not a "super hero", nor can I be considered a natural flyer. At the same time, during my first solo I had a Mike "jump" in front of me as I was downwind shortly before turning base meaning I faced circling to add some separation or trying some slow flying - I chose the latter and that gave me a huge boost in my confidence, knowing that I could keep a 172 in the air at 60 knots, holding a steady altitude in the circuit without an instructor telling me what to do; I hate to think what I would have done had I not had the extensive training I received. The second solo came as rather an anti-climax - climb out, accelerate to cruising speed, slow down, flaps down, land...... ;-)

Since then have just passed my ground exams and will be making my solo cross country runs shortly, have 2 hours circuit training solo and just over 36 hours in my book including all exercises which can be done with an instructor, I hope to be ready to take my final exam with 50 hours in my book.

Sorry for the rather lengthy posting but I wanted "Joe Average" to see that there are people out there who take longer to go solo but they shouldn't feel demotivated by this. And just because your time to solo takes longer, doesn't necessarily mean that your time to PPL will be excessively long.....;)