Average time to solo a student

I'm a very experienced power pilot CFI & have soloed hundreds of airplane student pilots over the years. That said, I'm not as experienced as a CFIG.

I soloed a new student this weekend. He flew three solo flights & did a spectacular job. He has no former flying experience so he wasn't the typical add-on pilot that I'm usually teaching.

On line it appears in several places that the average time to solo a glider is around 40 flights. Is they information accurate? My student doesn't have nearly that many flights.

Opinions?

I soloed after 25 launches. No prior flyimg.

The last two or three I've soloed.. no previous flying were at about 25 flights.

JP

The launch method has an impact. The longer flights associated with aerotow will probably mean a lower number of flights needed than with winch launching - but may mean longer actual flight time.

On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 11:43:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:

I soloed a new student this weekend. He flew three solo flights & did a spectacular job. He has no former flying experience so he wasn't the typical add-on pilot that I'm usually teaching.

On line it appears in several places that the average time to solo a glider is around 40 flights. Is they information accurate? My student doesn't have nearly that many flights.

snip

Well, as usual, "it depends" - particularly on age and frequency of flying. In my 40 years of instructing in gliders, I find the SSA's estimate of age plus 25 for ab initio students to solo pretty accurate. But I've seen as few as 20 or so for teenagers, and one that required over 90! For add-ons, it's all over the place depending on, e.g., not only age (older takes more sorties) or if they have any tail-dragger time (which shortens the number of sorties needed to solo).

On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 11:43:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:
I'm a very experienced power pilot CFI & have soloed hundreds of airplane student pilots over the years. That said, I'm not as experienced as a CFIG.

I soloed a new student this weekend. He flew three solo flights & did a spectacular job. He has no former flying experience so he wasn't the typical add-on pilot that I'm usually teaching.

On line it appears in several places that the average time to solo a glider is around 40 flights. Is they information accurate? My student doesn't have nearly that many flights.

Opinions?

45 years training.
I soloed in 20 flights but there were gaps in my training based on my experience since then.
When asked today I tell people that students that of "average" aptitude, that fly regularly and do their home study, can expect to solo in between 25 and 35 flights. I have had one or two serious young people that were good enough at 20 flights but most come in around 30. This is aero tow.
I get crazy when I see students who have soloed at other sites and see maybe 3 or 4 flights with slow flight and stalls logged. The task has been covered but there is almost no reasonable expectation of proficiency.
A few extra pro solo flights with emphasis on slow flight, stalls, precision, and odd condition patterns is, in my experience, worth the time and money and leads to better progress after first solo.
FWIW
UH

New kid on the block here with only 25 years instructing :-) Same answers as Hank and Jim. 25-35 here in the northeast with consistency/concentration of flying being the big variable. If you are a weekends-only operation and you lose a few weekends to weather or mechanicals, it can definitely seem like "two steps forward, one step back." On the other hand, with students who can fly during the week when it's less busy at the airport and they can do 3 or 4 takeoffs and landings at a time, we can skew toward the lower end.

Erik Mann (P3)



On Monday, June 4, 2018 at 8:45:11 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 11:43:58 PM UTC-4, wrote:
I'm a very experienced power pilot CFI & have soloed hundreds of airplane student pilots over the years. That said, I'm not as experienced as a CFIG.

I soloed a new student this weekend. He flew three solo flights & did a spectacular job. He has no former flying experience so he wasn't the typical add-on pilot that I'm usually teaching.

On line it appears in several places that the average time to solo a glider is around 40 flights. Is they information accurate? My student doesn't have nearly that many flights.

Opinions?

45 years training.
I soloed in 20 flights but there were gaps in my training based on my experience since then.
When asked today I tell people that students that of "average" aptitude, that fly regularly and do their home study, can expect to solo in between 25 and 35 flights. I have had one or two serious young people that were good enough at 20 flights but most come in around 30. This is aero tow.
I get crazy when I see students who have soloed at other sites and see maybe 3 or 4 flights with slow flight and stalls logged. The task has been covered but there is almost no reasonable expectation of proficiency.
A few extra pro solo flights with emphasis on slow flight, stalls, precision, and odd condition patterns is, in my experience, worth the time and money and leads to better progress after first solo.
FWIW
UH

Some good dialogue in the thread. The winch discussions reminded me that I actually had a mix of aerotow and autotow (poor man's winch) in my early training. The auto tow was fantastic toward the end of my pre-solo training, since I could shoot 3-4 patterns in a row in rapid succession. In my club, it was very hard to get more than 2 aerotows in a single session due to the schedule constraints. With auto-tow, we could turn around 4 flights in one hour easily during a weekday without needing the towpilot.

So, do many European clubs have a formal process to do something like this? Use aerotow to get some air-time early on to develop the basic stick and rudder skills followed by winch to enable multiple patterns (circuits) cost-effectively.

Just curious,

P3

On Wed, 06 Jun 2018 20:13:45 -0700, Papa3 wrote:

So, do many European clubs have a formal process to do something like
this? Use aerotow to get some air-time early on to develop the basic
stick and rudder skills followed by winch to enable multiple patterns
(circuits) cost-effectively.

My club, Cambridge, does almost all training on the winch. I think the
only aero-tows I had pre-solo were for spinning exercises, and that was
and is still pretty much the norm. I didn't get an aero tow solo sign-off
until I'd been solo for a year, and I only worked for that because I knew
I'd be flying on your side of the pond that October - 2001: I was at Lost
Hills, CA for the World Free Flight Champs and Sacramento for the Sierra
Cup and got to fly gliders at Boulder, Avenal, Williams and Minden, so a
good trip from all points of view.

Back then we used a flying list rather than the current booked two-seat
flying system, so there tended to be more people at the launch point. As
a result, if a group of us worked at it we could hit 18 launches an hour
on a two-drum winch but that did require one person dedicated to driving
the cable retrieve truck and another two ground handling helpers - thats
in addition to the usual launch marshal and log keeper - and needs all
student-instructor briefing to be completed before they're at the head of
the two parallel launch queues we normally use. Fun to do!

Now, with booked flying, the reduced waiting time at the launch point
means the experience is better for those learning to fly, but the reduced
number of people at the launch point limits the launch rate to 10 an hour
or less.

Just curious,

Hope that's useful input.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

On Thu, 07 Jun 2018 10:10:30 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:

On Wed, 06 Jun 2018 20:13:45 -0700, Papa3 wrote:

So, do many European clubs have a formal process to do something like
this? Use aerotow to get some air-time early on to develop the basic
stick and rudder skills followed by winch to enable multiple patterns
(circuits) cost-effectively.

My club, Cambridge, does almost all training on the winch. I think the
only aero-tows I had pre-solo were for spinning exercises, and that was
and is still pretty much the norm. I didn't get an aero tow solo
sign-off until I'd been solo for a year, and I only worked for that
because I knew I'd be flying on your side of the pond that October -
2001: I was at Lost Hills, CA for the World Free Flight Champs and
Sacramento for the Sierra Cup and got to fly gliders at Boulder, Avenal,
Williams and Minden, so a good trip from all points of view.

Back then we used a flying list rather than the current booked two-seat
flying system, so there tended to be more people at the launch point. As
a result, if a group of us worked at it we could hit 18 launches an hour
on a two-drum winch but that did require one person dedicated to driving
the cable retrieve truck and another two ground handling helpers - thats
in addition to the usual launch marshal and log keeper - and needs all
student-instructor briefing to be completed before they're at the head
of the two parallel launch queues we normally use. Fun to do!

Now, with booked flying, the reduced waiting time at the launch point
means the experience is better for those learning to fly, but the
reduced number of people at the launch point limits the launch rate to
10 an hour or less.

Just curious,

Hope that's useful input.

I should have added that the BGA provides a booklet listing the
accomplishments needed to solo. All students have a copy that the
instructor uses to sign off items as they're completed satisfactorily.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org