Time to solo

SkyJeff

SkyJeff

New Member
Do airlines care how much time it takes someone to solo? I have 11.2hrs and I'll probably solo sometime this week. My instructor says I'm on the outer end (meaning it is taking me longer).
 
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Do airlines care how much time it takes someone to solo?

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No.
 
I soloed at 26 hours, I must be a real loser. Wonder how I managed to get my flight instructor certificate.

Don't worry about it man, solo when you're good and ready!
 
"Let's see here, you've got 2000 hours of metroliner time, another 3000 hours of C-130 time, but HOLY COW! You took 18 hours to solo! Woo! Jimmy, come here and look at this! Man! Who called you in for an interview because I've got to have a talk with them!"
 
Haha thanks for the confidence booster. I know guys that took in the lower half of 30hrs hours to solo without any major breaks from flying, but my instructor likes to sign people off rather quickly. He was telling me how he signed a few guys/girls off at 4 and 5hrs. That statement got me thinking so I just had to ask!

Thanks
 
I think 4 or 5 hours would have been back in the day flying out of a very low traffic airport. Anymore, I'd have to say that's unheard of and outside of my comfort zone. The 30 hour number seems excessive unless you are flying out of a big, busy, airport, with complicated airspace issues, like KBFI. Even then, that's a pretty high number.

But, to answer your question, down the road nobody will care how long it took you to solo.
 
I have never soloed a student in less than 15hrs and I soloed at around 20+. The hours to solo does not really mean a whole lot.
 
I'm also in the 20+ to solo club. Its not anything to worry about career wise, even if you were 30+ hours.
 
I am currently at about 15 hours. Granted, I did take a 4 month break after the 9 hour mark. However, as my CFI says "You still can't fly the damn thing right."

Solo isn't particually something I am going to rush. BTW, it will probably be some time this week. I just have to work on the last 1/2 second of my landings.
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He was telling me how he signed a few guys/girls off at 4 and 5hrs.

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Take a look at all the things students have to learn before they're allowed to solo.

Maneuvers and procedures for pre-solo flight training in a single-engine airplane. A student pilot who is receiving training for a single-engine airplane rating must receive and log flight training for the following maneuvers and procedures:

(1) Proper flight preparation procedures, including preflight planning and preparation, powerplant operation, and aircraft systems;

(2) Taxiing or surface operations, including runups;

(3) Takeoffs and landings, including normal and crosswind;

(4) Straight and level flight, and turns in both directions;

(5) Climbs and climbing turns;

(6) Airport traffic patterns, including entry and departure procedures;

(7) Collision avoidance, windshear avoidance, and wake turbulence avoidance;

(8) Descents, with and without turns, using high and low drag configurations;

(9) Flight at various airspeeds from cruise to slow flight;

(10) Stall entries from various flight attitudes and power combinations with recovery initiated at the first indication of a stall, and recovery from a full stall;

(11) Emergency procedures and equipment malfunctions;

(12) Ground reference maneuvers;

(13) Approaches to a landing area with simulated engine malfunctions;

(14) Slips to a landing; and

(15) Go-arounds.

Now, maybe it's because I was a crappy pilot, but I sure don't remember learning how to do all these things in the first four or five hours of my training!
 
Ditto to that. I find it pretty impossible to get anyone from scratch to reasonable proficiency on all the areas required under 61.87 in much under 15hrs. I cover my rear before I solo a student and make sure all required training has been logged and that the student can demonstrate “satisfactory proficiency” on all tasks.
 
Your instructor sounds a little reckless. students need to have a good grasp on ALL of those tasks before they solo. At 4 or 5 hours, they may have done them once or twice, but unlikely that they are proficient enough to solo. 15-20 hours to solo is probably average. After you have your license, no one cares how many hours it took you to solo, or even to get your license for that matter.
 
That instructor is going to be in a world of hurt when one day a student of his balls up a landing on a solo and the FAA comes a knocking. I wouldn't want to explain how the student was proficient in the areas mentioned above in four or five flights. I could barely taxi the stupid plane my fourth ride.
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Now keep in mind I am not a pilot. I will be starting in a couple of weeks. However, I imagine that the time it takes you to solo is about like how long it took you to learn to walk. It really has no bearing on if you make the football team. In other words, if that didn't make sense, I don't think there is any correlation between the two. I know that when I go to solo I want to know that I know what I am doing to get safely back on the ground. I don't care if that is at 10 hours or at 60.
 
I wish people wouldn't make it a damn race. There are other factors that determine when a person is going to solo besides simply how good of a pilot they are. I live in an area where winter weather can ground you for months. In fact during the time when I was getting my training, I have a logbook gap between flights on 12/4 until 3/13. No flying for over three months despite scheduling an aircraft on almost every weekend. You forget certain things about flying over that time. Also, I had a period where money became somewhat tight and flying wasn't exactly a top priority for almost six months.

I soloed at 35 hours, almost a year and a half after starting training, and I couldn't care less when another pilot soloed. Knowing that he/she can perform to the PTS standards is all I care about.
 
I wouldn't say he is a bad instructor. In fact I'd say he is one of the best. A 60 year old retired Air Force F-100 pilot with over 25 yrs experience as a CFI/II. He says he instructs like the AF and teaches more than is needed to be a PPL. That's what I'm going for, not to only learn how to fly, but learn to fly well!

Thanks for the info on soloing. I felt like I was doing something very wrong, but I guess it really depends on the person.

I do agree with the 4-5 hr comments, that is way to premature.
 
I soloed in 14 hours which my instructor told me was exceptionally fast. I have a friend who tried to beat our school record (which rumor has is 7 hours), but ended up focusing more on that than the flying and he ended up being in the 20+ club if I remember right.

I've heard of less than 10 hour solos, but I've also understood that a lot of those people are people who had only logged maybe 5-7 hours but had actually flown a lot with relatives, friends, etc. before they officially started flight training.
 
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