time to 1st solo rotary
 

Know that this one has been done a lot on the fixed wing forums, but not seen it on the rotary ones.

The school at which I did my PPL(H) would not consider any student ready for solo before they had done at least 20 hours.

So, what is the average time to a first rotary solo?

From recollection my school were the same, (on the R22) however I believe it was an insurance / CAA consideration.

I will stand stand corrected if this isn't the case though.

If you don't include the slabwing time, I know a certain chap who went solo in under five hours! Not bad Ginza :ok:

There seem to be an awful lot of variables in determining time to 1st solo (ability of student, ability of instructor, application by student, consistancy of lessons, airfield environment etc etc).

However, maybe the greatest determinant of all is aircraft type. Like it or not, with all other things being equal, a student is going to solo quicker in an S300 than in the R22.

I would hazard a guess that the 20hr limit applies to the R22, and it's about right.


But (as I hope Whirlybird will back me up), please try not to get too hung up about how long it takes to go first solo. On the grand scheme of things, it's really not that important. Different people excel at different things. A student who is good at the 'aviate' side of things (ie time to first solo) might well struggle with the 'communicate' and/or 'navigate' side of things. The only people that 'time to first solo' really matters to seem to be those who are 'my car is faster than yours' or 'my w*lly is bigger than yours' types.


Hope this helps,

B73

It must depend on a number of variables such as previous experience, continuity especially, quality of instructor and individual aptitude.

Flying every day in good weather with a good instructor will get you solo much quicker than flying once a fortnight in the winter.

When I did my training most of us went solo in 7-12 hours. Much longer than that and there was a training risk for later in the course, and it would be difficult to complete the course in the prescribed hours too.

I agree with B73 that it is not a factor in the great scheme of things, but would also say that someone who struggles to go solo will probably also struggle later in their training, and it may be better to cut their losses early (if the school doesn't do it for them.) Difficult, I agree, especially if you are paying for it yourself and are desperate to fly.

There was a very sad, avoidable accident that happened about 16 years ago in the SE England. The Pilot had been 'chopped' from a commercially sponsored course and then managed to obtain a CPL by self funding at another school. He was then taken on by a North Sea operator but was again 'chopped' during his conversion phase. A small operator took him on as a pilot and sadly he crashed while doing a charter with passengers.

The point is, that it is true not to be too hung up on time to solo, particularly if continuity is a problem, but there will come a point where it becomes a falsehood to keep throwing money attempting to go solo as this is only one small step in the whole process. It doesn't get much easier after that, I would suggest.

General opinion that I have come across is 8-15 hrs for S300 and up to twice that for R22.

My First Solo was after 18.5hrs on THE DAY of my 16th birthday, all in an R22,

RHM

On the old Bristow training school the average for the R22 was about 10-12 hours

thanks for replies so far, please keep them coming!

Yes, it was the R22 I trained in. The schools' explanation for the 20 hour limit was twofold:

1 For insurance purposes, as stated above
2 To take the pressure off the student

Knowing that there is no way you are allowed to solo before 20 hours goes some way to preventing the "your w***y is bigger than mine" scenario.

This is so much better than the fixed wing scene, where, (even though it is debated), the time to solo can (and does), become a competitive issue.

Also, I know a rotary instructor who didn't reach the solo stage themselves for 30+ hours - this person, (IMHO), is a superb instructor.

Just goes to show....

As Bravo73 said (and very well) - it doesn't mean a great deal in the scheme of things.

Some schools, for example, count first solo as a hover solo whereas my first solo was a couple of circuits of the airfield.

Time to solo? - around 35 hours. However, I completed the rest of the course in 20 - something hours.

My instructor wanted me to be able to do engine off landings, tail rotor control failure landings (which is outside the syllabus!!) before I went solo.

Whirlybird, I'm sure, will tell you her story. The military guys will tell you another.

So it seems the average could be anything from 5 to 50!!

Cheers

Whirlygig

Whirlybird will NOT tell you her story; she's had too many things used against her on PPRuNe, and she does actually learn from experience. Let's just say I didn't break any records in my hours to first solo. :)

I think that Frank Robinson made a rule in the USA that no-one should go solo on the R22 in less than 20 hours, as a response to the early high accident rate in the R22, though I'm not certain of this. At any rate, it's commonly a rule in schools over there, and in many over here too, mine included. At around 17 hours, my instructor told me that in many schools I'd be considered ready for solo, but I couldn't do it there till I had 20 hours. At just over 21 hours, and drastically over-confident - though of course I didn't realise it at the time - I said to my instructor as he told me how well I was doing: "So when do I get to go solo then?". He was a little taken aback! But then my takeoffs went to pieces, the weather got bad, other things went wrong, and it took me quite a bit longer. But, as Bravo73 and others have said, it really doesn't mean a lot - the longer I fly, the more sure of this I become. By the time I went solo I'd done most of the course. My second solo was three circuits, then I asked if I could fly to the next airfield, where I had friends, for the third one. I was told it was far, far too early. I explained that I'd flown the route f/w loads of times, and I knew I could do it, so I was finally allowed to. So...one circuit, then three circuits, then a solo landaway...is that a first?

Awww, Jeez, I ended up telling you my story anyway...will I ever learn? :)

Solo time
 

I soloed an F28A Enstrom in just over 8 hours. A buddy of mine did his in 5 hours in a hughes 269. Both of us were already fixed wing pilots, so we already had knowledge of radio, traffic patterns, etc. Another buddy soloed the F28A in 18 hours from scratch, I thought that was pretty good. It took me a lot longer (23 hours) for my real first solo, in a fixed wing PA-12. Partly due to it being a taildragger, partly I was in no real hurry, but the tailwheel skills I learned made my feet a lot smarter. Made antitourqe control a pretty easy transition.

As an example, the Robinson-backed R22 insurance scheme makes the following stipulation:

Prior to initial solo flight, all student and non-helicopter rated pilots must receive at least 20 hours of dual instruction in helicopters, of which at least 10 hours are in the R22.

Yes, and I think the 20 hours before solo were stated in one of the SFAR's which have now expired.

Just checked the log book and mine was 57.6 hours to first solo, after 14,000+ plank. Partly because my flying had been done a few hours at a time at different schools in various countries, but also because of a mature pilot's feeling that I wanted to be really sure that I could handle anything that happened on the circuit. I had turned down a couple of opportunities for this reason.

G_string hits the nail with the comments about ego. Sad but true, and beware those that boast of an early solo. Those that have the ability AND the reserve in their character are the pilots with whom you want to fly, or employ.

And if you are reading this, thank you Mike Bill at Redhill for taking on the awesome responsibilty of sending a plank pilot solo in a helicopter :ooh:

If you allow an hour a leson up to lesson 12 (first solo) and then add a few extra hours to get the hang of hovering etc you get up to the 18 - 20 hour figure everyone has mentioned. Any earlier than this is just pointless and potential for disaster.

A main point I have a slight grumble about is that should the engine fail when a student is early solo they have not yet (following the sylabus order) progressed to forced landings andvanced autos or any real learning of EOL. Leaves you rather stuck when the donkey stops having only had a short demo.

I personally continue on with students letting them solo in the hover after initial circuit solo to help with confidence (short periods not an hour at first liable to fatigue and mistakes follow) However I continue on to cover advanced autos etc. This also helps to boost their confidence when they start to realise they can cope and remove some of the fear of being up without the instructor. This then promotes faster learning and means they finish in the same time as an early solo student.

8hrs30 on a Bell 47 - manual throttle (no correlator) and 8540 accident free since then - I'm still touchin' wood!

Interesting subject!

Here in Canada there is no minimum hourly requirement when to go solo.
At my former school (Canadian Helicopters) most of the guys went solo between 20 to 25 hrs. Everybody had to successfully complete part of the flight training syllabus including full on autorotations.
Later when I became an instructor myself most full time students would still solo at about 25 hrs. The big exception was a part timer who soloed at 85 hrs.
I totally agree with some guys who say that when going solo is not a big deal.
I have also seen so many times that someone who learns slower initially will make a better pilot later.

Bell 47G2, Solo at 17.5 hours, but had a bit of fixed wing time. Soloed on the C-172 at 5.5 hours.

I was going to post my helicopter time-to-solo hours - they're not spectacular or anything - but then remembered how my fixed-wing time-to-solo went. So I'm not going to, in "protest" of this idea about how great of a rated pilot you will become if you solo after five or seven hours.

Not by my own choice, I changed instructors about twenty hours into it, and I think he was a bit paranoid (in the US, I can understand why - key term being LAWYERS) so it took quite a while before he jumped out.

My point here is that the time to solo is not wholly dependent on the candidate's skills - the CFI's comfort level/paranoia plays a part, and all of the cards are in his hands past a certain point.

Closing remark - am I a bit envious or jealous of those folks that became PIC after eight or ten hours? I must confess I am just a little bit - every pilot would like to think that he/she fell from the womb with a tiny cyclic and collective in hands and tiny pedals for the footsies.. But that's an ego thing and I have learned to live with it :O

Dave Blevins

P.S. one thing that struck me about this thread is Whirlygirl's comment about her postings here being used against her. I have always posted under my real name (and will continue to, being a licensed cumudgeon) but if I may say so it's a sad statement of affairs that most people here feel they have to remain anonymous. What a f8cked up profession I aspire to in my dreams...:yuk:

I went solo in the R22 at 18 hours, then during my commercial licence training i was lucky enough to do the last 40 odd hours in Bell 206, going solo in that was way more scarier than the R22. I went solo in Bell 206 at 60ish hours TT.

:cool:

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. ;) :)

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.

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.......

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

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

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.

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.

:ok:

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

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!

:{

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!:)

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.

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.

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!

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

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.:\

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.

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

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.

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? :D

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.