Interesting, your proportions are just about exactly reversed.
This guy had about 25% of his time as PIC, while at the same stage you had
only 25% as dual, AND you had the higher rating.

I'll bet averages today, for the first few hundred hours, are in between
somewhere. There IS more to learn and the standards have changed, even though
some of the things you probably had to demonstrate for your PPL are no longer
included in the PTS. Certainly very few pilots today have an IR rating with
only 80 hours dual.

G Faris

I don't think I was atypical for the time. Since I was flying in Massachusetts,
IFR was I thought required, and I took off for my IFR flight test with 199.5
hours tt logged! I have friends who flew in the Navy who claimed they were
landing jets on carriers with 200 hours tt.


thanks all for your responses. I did a little more investigation and learned
the pilot in question had logged a bunch of duel before taking his pp flight
test, then gave up flying for a while. I guess when he started again he started
right at the beginning. It explains some of the heavy dual -- some other
factors explain even more.

AJW