Scudrunners

Is the present 45 hours minimum sufficient to get a PPL?

Air Cadets still do it in 6 weeks every summer, so ... yes?

With the right instructors instilling the right attitude in their students: yes.

Helps if the students are

1) young (not Catholic Church young, but under 20)

2) have aptitude to be a pilot

3) are strongly motivated to be a pilot (and not a Pussyâ„¢)

4) have nothing else distracting them.  Their full-time job is learning to fly.
And of course, getting laid.  Let's be honest about this.

The Cadets also fly an hour every day or so. The concentrated learning without waiting a week or two between flights makes a big difference.

Indeed.  There is a dimension missing from how we measure experience -
intensity.

How I learned to fly light piston twins, decades ago, [i]after[/i] I was technically
qualified to do so, was to fly 105 hours in 21 days on some clapped out
Piper Apaches in Florida one winter.  I remember one of them had an engine
with 5500 SMOH.  Ran ok, actually. 

Yup, 5 hours a day.  At the end of it, I couldn't stand  to even look at another
round-nose Piper Apache with missing paint, but goddamned I could fly the
pants off them.

If I had obtained that 105 hours on twins over 10 years, I would not have
achieved anywhere near the same level of proficiency.

Better to save up your time and money, and have an intensive period
of flight training, like the air cadets experience, to get the most bang
for your buck.  It's not the only factor in efficient flight training, but it's
a significant one.

I've said before that anyone under 1000TT (pick your asymptotic number)
should fly at least once, preferably twice every day.

You fly once, preferably twice a day, you get pretty good.  Maybe not
Rob Holland or Bob Hoover good, but after a few decades of doing
that you can work towards being a second-tier pilot, next to the Gods.

You won't ever be ask good as them, but it's nice to earn a spot in the
same room.

re: asymptotic curve ... I googled and found the following.  Ignore the
labels and numbers on the X and Y axis - it's the shape of the curve
that's important.

[img width=500 height=278]https://i.stack.imgur.com/RN33N.png[/img]

After a certain amount of experience at performing a particular task,
you stop getting better quickly.  In fact, you start improving slower
and slower.

In my experience, by the time a pilot has 3000TT, he has shown
you what he's got.  He's not going to be 10x the pilot when he clocks
5000TT.

And, a 20,000TT pilot is probably not going to be much better than
a 10,000TT pilot.  In fact, he might even be worse, because of the
effects of aging.  I personally think you peak as a pilot in your early
40's.  You can still be damned good in your 60's, but not as good as
you were, at your peak.

All this to say, is that while logbook totals are interesting, they don't
tell the whole story.

For example, I have been programming in C/asm for 36 years now,
but my son says I have six months experience, 72 times over  >:D

I actually stole that from this guy:

[img width=320 height=500][/img]

Sometimes - only sometimes - he would hurt people's feelings.

[quote author=cgzro link=topic=9517.msg27064#msg27064 date=1551960515]
The Cadets also fly an hour every day or so. The concentrated learning without waiting a week or two between flights makes a big difference.
[/quote]

Don't Air Cadets get glider time before starting whatever they call the PPL training? Also is it 100% pass rate?

[quote author=David MacRay link=topic=9517.msg27071#msg27071 date=1551974611]
[quote author=cgzro link=topic=9517.msg27064#msg27064 date=1551960515]
The Cadets also fly an hour every day or so. The concentrated learning without waiting a week or two between flights makes a big difference.
[/quote]

Don't Air Cadets get glider time before starting whatever they call the PPL training? Also is it 100% pass rate?
[/quote]

Not necessarily. My Cadet PPL group had two or three without gliding time and everyone finished up within 50 hours. I think the lowest flight test score was high 70's.

I didn't see anyone wash out of PPL but I'm sure it happens. Gliding has a decent failure rate - 4 failed flights (out of a 45 flight syllabus) gets you sent home.

I feel like the cadet program is better than most.

Am I the only one thinking the glider time is quite valuable? Why do those flight hours get omitted from the comparison discussions?

The disciplined structure is probably a factor too.

Most of the Cadets who've done glider first have 15-20 hours when they arrive for their PPL. It's a great confidence boost but in the grand scheme not enough to build concrete skills that zoom them ahead of the pack. Like I said, the non-glider PPL students in my group only took an hour or three longer to finish than the rest of us.

The structured learning was great. At the airport right after breakfast, ground school till lunch and then 2-3 hours flying in the afternoon. Nothing builds skill like fast paced instruction. A sponge can't dry out if it's underwater.