On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 3:51:50 PM UTC-6, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:19:16 -0700, pstrzel wrote:

flying cross-country solo requires years of experience.

All due respect, but this is quite wrong given a suitable club culture.

A very high proportion of new solo pilots at my UK club will be flying XC
within 18 months of their first solo.


Well, 1.5 years is still more than 1 year, so "years" is still technically correct. :-). I believe for the right person it can be done within a season, but goals need to be set by the individual and a road map to their attainment made available by the club. Your point about the suitable club culture is I believe the whole point of this discussion.


The pursuit of mastery isn't always fun.

I'd disagree: putting in the time, thought and practise to hone a complex
skill, such as soaring, can be very pleasurable. But, maybe I'm just
weird.

This may be semantics more than a disagreement as "isn't always" is in the same category as "can be".

Cheers,

Piotr S.