Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
There is a short video on the AOPA website a few days ago which showed and talked about these students.

It is obvious that the lady can fly the plane, but that they did not do a solo flight at all,the CFI is right there in the plane next to her.

It will be interesting to see what if anything happens to these students when they go back to their home airport and fly with another CFI. Will they get to do a genuine solo flight soon, or will the CFI have them repeat all the learning they have already done in Florida?

I assume the course at Sun N Fun was given to these 3 students at no cost to them. What now,will they continue their training if they have to pay for it,and will they become private pilots? I hope so. I'd sure like to meet them as Airventure.

I don't think Redbird has plans now to continue to repeat this at Oshkosh, wish they did.
And for those who say it is too busy, too many planes to do this training at EAA, they could easily do what they did at Sun N Fun where the flying was at a nearby airport. Plant City, to Lakeland.
As a low time student shooting for an SP license, I don't "get" you guys! I'm not quite to my solo yet but I'm getting close. Personally, an "assisted" solo may be better for me than simply tossing me into the left seat without a CFI in as little time as possible just to prove the point that it can be done. Have any of you "aviation purists," ie, "solo means SOLO" considered what that student has got going through his head when you throw him to the wolves just to prove a theory? What if the poor sap crashes on landing because, in his mind, he wasn't ready but in the mind of others, 6 to 8 hours should have been enough? Maybe it's just me but having a CFI in the cockpit with me that sits there and lets me do the flying would be no different than taking up a passenger that knows absolutely nothing about flying. The one difference here would be that the CFI in the right seat can make things right prior to a catastrophic mistake by a low time student. I keep hearing "safety first" but then some of you old timers (or high timers) suggest that we take someone with zero hours to solo in a week. Sure am glad I'm not flying with the likes of you.