time to 1st solo rotary

[Whirlybird]

one thing that struck me about this thread is Whirlygirl's comment about her postings here being used against her

I was partly joking...though only partly. To put the record straight, I've received huge amounts of help and support from other pilots, both on and off PPRuNe. But PPRuNe can be read by ANYONE, and is. And most of them don't find it too hard to work out who a female helicopter instructor from North Wales really is; it's not like there are hundreds of us. Just occasionally I've found that there are peole waiting, just waiting, for a reason to flame or criticise me. It happens mainly on the Private Flying forum, not here, and I suspect it's partly jealousy. Whatever, I'd like to keep my tentative hold on a job in rotary aviation, and I've decided that a teeny weeny bit of discretion on PPRune is maybe a good idea. Not that I always stick to it, as you've probably gathered.

What I really mean is, most of this lot are a nice bunch...even though they sometimes hide it well. But there are just a few....

I'm not paranoid; it's just that people persecute me.

[krobar]

Sticktime

I think one of the most important things is the amount of time you spend physically in control of the machine. A student thats been watching a instructor going through the lessons, will not be as well prepared to go solo as a student thats been in control throughout his lessons.
Of course this depends on all those factors previously mentioned. How well a student prepares for lessons before climbing into the cockpit will determine how much time he/she wastes, and this will have a huge impact on solo time.

[pprecious]

I solo'd on average time.

Only thing I can remember was equal measures of exhiliration, terror, absolute concentration and loneliness!

That cockpit gets much bigger when you remove the person you've just spent 25 hours with in the one place.......

[IFMU]

Interesting thread. I agree with Blave that the instructor is a big part of the picture, and his confidence/paranoia ratio can be a bigger factor in time to solo than the student's natural ability. I was lucky to have a great instructor, very confident and good at judging how ready the student was. In reply to Banjo's comment about not having done advanced autos before an early solo, that really depends upon the instructor's syllabus. By my 8+ hour solo, I had done straight-ins, 180's, 360's, and he soloed me after we did autos from cruise and 50 feet altitude. These were all full touchdown autos, never had to do a power recovery until it was time to prepare for my checkride. Had the director of the school not been in the reserves, activated and sent over to the first gulf war, I'm sure it would have been 20+ hours to solo.

-- Bryan

[pilotwolf]

24 hrs all in the R22 but the SFAR was still in force for minimum of 20 hrs.

Also the 1st 2 of the 24 hrs were done about a year before the rest which were done in the space of a week.

Does it make me a better pilot than someone who took 40 hrs over a few months/years?

PW

[Hughes500]

Ok guys and Gals I run a training school with 300's Here's my input.
To 1st solo depends upon
a. have you done fixed wing
b. age - how quickly you can pick things up
c. how often you fly
d. the type of helicopter you fly


Personally all my students will have done lesson 13.14 and 16 before solo ( sideways, backwards, eol's) before going solo

The best I have had is 7 hours ( fixed wing instructor ) the worst 24 hours ( 64 years old taking one lesson a fortnight )
The average appears to be 15.3 hours

A question about 20 hours in an R22, having insured machines for nearly 15 years i have never seen any clause about time to 1 st solo, me thinks it is a good way of skinning the student.

[Staticdroop]

As an instructor i firmly believe that the current sylabus, which is virtualy a direct copy from the military sylabus, is not suited to the civil PPL market. My own opinion, and those of the other instructors in this school, believe that you should have completed a good chunk of the course - 25+ hours - before going solo. The reason, you have a better chance of coping with things if they go wrong.
How many pilots who went solo in a short time can put there hands on there heart and say categoricaly that they could have dealt competently with an emergency, not many i would imagine. Don't forget this is supposed to be fun, there is no point taking chances if you don't have to, if your doing it for a living you need to get home at the end of the day to enjoy your ill gotten gains.

[bladewashout]

I trained under FAA rules and did a hover-only solo in R22 after about 24 hours, but didn't do solo circuits until I had over 30 hours - a combination of weather out of limits and not being ready myself.

Personally, I enjoyed the first solo circuits because I felt completely prepared for whatever might happen. I found the learning process slow to pick up (I'm over 40!).

However other (mainly younger) pilots at the same school were gagging to get up as early as they could, thinking it would somehow affect how they were viewed in the future by prospective employers. Not wanting to become a career pilot, this wasn't a big deal for me - I just wanted to be as safe as I could be.

Along the same vein as this subject, I have heard (correctly? incorrectly?) that the Robinson factory will not permit staff to take up passengers on company aircraft (presumably on company business) unless they have over 300 hours total time. If correct, it demonstrates that they are taking a considerable amount of care, and all credit to them for that. Taking passengers as a newly qualified pilot is great, but a big distraction and the accident rate for low-time qualified pilots isn't pretty.

So my question is: for newly qualified PPL pilots, is it wise to self-limit themselves to solo flight or flight with instructors or other rated pilots until they have a certain number of hours over & above their license grant time? If so, how many hours?

BW

[eman_resu]

So my question is: for newly qualified PPL pilots, is it wise to self-limit themselves to solo flight or flight with instructors or other rated pilots until they have a certain number of hours over & above their license grant time? If so, how many hours?

Good one, I personally took passengers up fairly soon after qualification, however I always had to have a 20-30min checkride before hand (dependant on how long it had been since the last flight), and pretty much always flew local routes which I'd done many times before under training.

It made me confident enough to do the flight, and wary enough to consider the problems...

Each to his own as usual, although I don't think I ever had the race to first solo with any other students, as we were all learning at different paces and different time differentials (eg, some were full time, I could make 2 out of 3 weekends)

Either way, happy flying to all and there's no need to rush, I knew of an older student that eventually went solo after loads of hours, I think he enjoyed the company of the instructor too much

I do less now than I ever did, and damn well miss it!

[belly tank]

I remember my first solo like it was yesterday 10 years ago!!

did my tng in an r22 beta....solo at 18hrs...no previous flying experience and 18yrs old...when i went solo.. climbing out i looked over to the instructor seat and thoght...OH F@#K Hes not there anymore get a grip (literally) and just do what youve been tought!..uneventfull afterwards i though what an awesome rush!!!... that was 10 years ago..and a few more hours on!!! i love it even more...flying helos is all i know i wouldnt change it for the world!

[NickLappos]

In my flight school class, the average was probably about 12 hours, the first was about 6 hours, and I was among the last at 18 hours.
IMHO, the biggest influence is the courage of the instructor and the second is the continuity of training. We flew 1.5 per day, and ate, slept helicopter flying, with virtually no weather, ATC or family interference. We had 210 hours in 10 months, as well as 50 hours of instrument simulation! A poor guy who flys once a week, juggles a job and has a life should take longer.

[Corax]

Canadian military pilots currently arrive with 95 hours in a Harvard II (Beech Mentor II) and if there are no hiccups in their progress they solo at 11 hours, most we see is about 13 and if they can't then their career as a military pilot is over.

[Billywizz]

Some military instructors told me their students went solo about 8-9 hours but they were flying every day. The student ppl who is flying once a week is going to take longer. I saw a guy who went solo in an enstrom in 10 hours, sadly he stuffed it into the ground in 11 hours, maybe with a bit more experience flying it could have been avoided!

[ConwayB]

In the Australian Army...

Hi there,
For what it's worth...

In the Aussie Army, during my training back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, we trained on AS350Bs (Squirrels/A-Stars). At that stage of training, we had already done a 70+hr FW course to PPL standard (but I already had my civvie FW licence and 5 hrs on a Bell 47). So with 150 FW hours under my belt... and flying the Squirrel twice a day for two weeks, I went solo in 21.5 hours.

Most of my course mates went solo between 20 to 23 hours. The course was structured that way and you had to show your competence to your instructor and another instructor as well as pass all your ground school exams pertinent to RW flying and the Squirrel technical aspects.

Don't get too hung up on when you go solo. There'll be many more pressing issues to worry about later on in life such as making sure you bring yourself, your passengers and your aircraft safely back to earth whilst battling poor weather, poor maintenance, poor management and a host of other issues a responsible pilot must consider. Having said that, enjoy the flying... and as we all say:

"Can't Hover? Don't bother!"

Safe flying
CB

[Gaseous]

The first solo was at 22.5 hourswhich was fine. I was well and truly ready.

The blind panic happened 5hours later when I first flew into Liverpool solo on a busy weekday. Everything had changed from the practice run. ATC changed me onto a different route in, different VRPs, displaced threshold, Jets everywhere, gusty wind. I remenber hovering in the middle of the runway with not a clue where to go or what to do.

The loneliest place ever.

[Pat Malone]

I went solo in 10hr 40min, all on the Robinson, but I had a lot of fixed-wing time. I know of one student who went solo in just over eight hours, all on the R22. He was a high-time commercial fixed-wing pilot, but even so the CFI was not pleased with the FI who sent him solo.
Robinson recommends a minimum of 20 hours largely to take the pressure off the student. Time-to-solo is a bit of a "hairy-chest competition" for pilots - even the ladies. In particular, the factory quotes one instance of a student being sent solo after seven and a half hours. He crashed and killed himself.
Ironically, I've always found that many of the best pilots I know had real trouble in the early stages of training - came close to giving up, or escaped being washed out by a hair's breadth in the military. There seems to be absolutely no correlation between time-to-solo and eventual competence.

[krobar]

Nothing beats that feeling of going solo. Awesome performance now that the dead-weight(Instructor) is out the door.
Rather spend the solo scared less, not enjoying it as much, just to be able to brag about time to solo?

[HedgePig]

For the record...

I was extensively involved in an SA flight school and our solo rules were directly guided by our part 141, and what was approved by the CAA, which said it's up to an instructor to decide but not before 12 hours (i think it was 12...).

Having said that the legend who trained me heaved me out of the nest at 7.2 hours...

Also i know of one student, saw the paperwork myself, who was signed out solo (all initial helicopter skills competent) after 3.1 hours. Granted, he is also the highest private pilot fast-jet flyer in the world (1000+ in ex-military jets) so it was no huge surprise.

That's my bit.

HP.

[sneetch]

32 hours to first solo, R22.

It's interesting to see (but not exactly a suprise) that there are so many of pitfalls for the student to watch out for during the flight training process. I made most of the mistakes that you can make on my way to first solo, most of which have been mentiontioned above.

Irregular training is a big one - sometimes once a week, sometimes once a fortnight and sometimes, for various reasons (weather being the main offender) much longer.
Consistency of instruction and instructor is also an important point. By the time I had 25 hours, I had flown with 5 different instructors and each one approaches things differently. I also did an awful lot of hours with low time instructors (a couple who had only just qualified) who ofcourse weren't authorised to send me solo. Trusting and getting along with the instructor is pretty important too. One of my instructors was a very experienced, high timer but about as grumpy and impatient as they come.

But in the long run ....... who cares?

[TinKicker]

I went solo FW in 10.2 hours. Some 3000+ FW hours later went solo in a H269 at 9.5 hours. Because of the syllabus that I was training under, I had to convert to the R22 later. With about 18 hours TT RW I went solo in the R22 after 0.9 hours dual on it.