First Solo and Total Hours Flown

This is exactly the type of comments that makes me sad to hear from
pilots - 'not everyone is cut out to be a pilot'. This attempts to make
the point that pilots are some kind of superior being.

As you very well know, flying is only 10% motor skills and 90%
attitude. You can even teach a monkey the motor skills required to fly
an airplane. But you can't teach attitude.

Solo is all about motor skills. It is like teaching a monkey. It is a
big jump from there to becoming a pilot, unless of course someone is
under the illusion that flying is all about pushing buttons and moving
the yoke.

Quality of instruction is a big factor that affects solo time. It is
pretty lame when instructors start bailing out by claiming that 'not
everyone is cut out to be a pilot'.

Under the GI bill, there might have been some financial interest in
making these claims. In addition, since someone else was paying for
their flying, there might have been some students whose heart was not
in it.

If someone said they took 75 hours for solo, I will start by first
asking questions about their instructor.

Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was four years old and wasn't
fluent until at least age eight. I suppose you would claim that he was
not cut out to be an intelligent person.




karl gruber wrote:
"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
ups.com...
birdog wrote:


While this is a rediculuous question, it fits right in with our current
political environment, in that the federal gov't. should dictate the
number
of hours it SHALL take us to be competent to solo. I've known licensed
pilots with 300 hours that I wouldn't fly with, and others who have
solo'd
in 6 hours. 75 hours to solo? Why was he EVER allowed to solo?

Are you saying that someone who took 75 hours to solo must have had
some serious problems, and therefore should not be allowed to solo?


Yes. Very serious problems. I know here on RAP it is popular to encourage
high time pre soloers to continue. But I think they are simply not cut out
for aviation.

I KNOW that during the GI bill time that lasted until 1978, we instructors
had to regularly advise all sorts of perspective commercial pilots to think
about buying a boat instead.

Not everyone is cut out to be a pilot.

Karl
"Curator" N185KG